Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Now, Today and The Day After Never.

When standing in the South African bush or a white sand stretch of Mozambique be wary of relying on locals to tell you when transport is arriving. While the person you are speaking to may reply in perfect English, it is highly likely that what you understand of and will expect from "now" or "tomorrow" varies drastically from what will actually be the case.

My conception of what one means when they say tomorrow has been revisited, redefined and revolutionized since living in Mozambique. I used to assume tomorrow was referring to a time with in the following 24 hours. I now understand that for most mozambicans and even some Soth Africans tomorrow can reference anytime in the next 24 hours, 2 weeks or even never-ever.

I can thank Mozambique for expanding my horizons on the term tomorrow but it is the South Africans who deserve credit for revolutionizing "now". The utterance of "now" previously resonated a sense of urgency with in a person. Thanks to South Africans "now" falls into a far broader time frame. Depending on it's repetition and placement with word "just", "now" can loosely refer to anything from this instant to the day after never.

As with many concepts in the world time has now joined the ranks of heat, poverty and modesty in being extensively and ultimately relative.

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