Time is strange. We can measure it, but we are never really quite sure what it is or where it is taking us.
![320px-Wooden_hourglass_3](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_148/http://www.fujisantrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/320px-Wooden_hourglass_3-148x300.jpg)
When I was in my early twenties, I lived for one year in the Northern Province of Sudan. We were surrounded by desert but our little village near the river Nile was green and beautiful.
![Sudan_-_Location_Map_(2011)_-_SDN_-_UNOCHA.svg](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_800/http://www.fujisantrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Sudan_-_Location_Map_2011_-_SDN_-_UNOCHA.svg_.png)
Even so, it was a long bus trip to the capital in Khartoum; I often felt isolated and cut off from “civilization”, trapped with rather backward people. It was worrying when I asked about the bus schedules and discovered that the buses often did not actually arrive and leave at the times they were supposed to arrive and leave. I was even more concerned about the attitude of the locals; they didn’t seem to think that the looseness of the schedule was a serious problem. They even suggested that I was being silly and that I should just relax and enjoy myself more!
![Sudan_Meroe_Pyramids_2001](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_300/http://www.fujisantrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Sudan_Meroe_Pyramids_2001-300x205.jpg)
Thinking back on my experience, I wasted a lot of time and made myself feel bad by telling myself that the locals should change; I thought they should be more like me and take things like schedules more seriously!
![Church_of_the_Granite_Columns_2007-10-03_02](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_300/http://www.fujisantrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Church_of_the_Granite_Columns_2007-10-03_02-300x209.jpg)
There are actually psychological studies that suggest that certain Arab cultures have a less structured sense of time than western cultures. It seems that some people find it difficult to accept a rigid schedule, for example. It seems that people in westernized countries (including Japan) tend to regard time as a commodity: time is money. It seems that Africans generally do not have this view of time.
![Bulinya_-_Dance](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_450/http://www.fujisantrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Bulinya_-_Dance.jpg)
In Swahili, there are two words that indicate time: sasa and zamani. The word sasa indicates present time and creates a sense of urgency. The word zamani indicates the past but with a strong sense of time as a connector of individual souls. Time has a stronger meaning as a cycle rather than a straight line.
![Bulinya_-_Maasai_Market](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_730/http://www.fujisantrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Bulinya_-_Maasai_Market.jpg)
People in rich countries tend to feel dissatisfied with lack of time and feel frustrated as a result. People who experience time pressure usually move faster than people who are not worried about lack of time. In one experiment, Japanese were found to be the fastest walkers.
![OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/q_glossy,ret_img,w_520/http://www.fujisantrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Wasike_-_Maasai_Group.jpg)