Inner Tanzanian

Breakfasts in Tunduru are being taken at this half outdoor restaurant, which has hot coals and smoking grills as obstacles by the entrance. No one in Tunduru expresses a sense of urgency about starting work at a fixed time, or fretting about unanswered emails as they sip their morning chai. On a daily basis I think about how the world of work in countries like the UK has equipped us to be stressed for a very large part of our adult lives. And how the wellbeing and therapy industries are now essential to offset the tension created by how we live our lives.

I see my Tanzanian colleagues baffled by the approach of foreigners often. I can almost see their brains puzzling over why foreigners get so worked up about timelines and deadlines. One of the reasons I enjoy working overseas is that I may slowly shed habits and absorb the more relaxed approaches of Tanzanians or Mozambicans, which I imagine serve their bodies and minds well. Or I may forever be trapped in Anglocentric ways of doing everything. Which currently seems to be the case.

We would all do well to channel our inner Tanzanian. Which we do all have in our DNA as the area covered by modern Tanzania is likely to have been the birthplace of homo sapiens. If those ancestors knew what societal struggles would ensue as they emerged from that gorge, I wonder whether they would have tried less hard to colonise the Earth.