Spare time: how do you spend yours?

Having spent many hours travelling up and down UK motorways over the last few months, we have experienced a lot of traffic! Many of our journeys have (unfortunately) been on Friday and Sunday evenings and you will all know what the roads can be like at that time! As I’ve thought about it, the very concept of motorway queues, especially on Friday and Sundays, is an excellent indicator of affluence.

I’ve been reflecting since being back in the UK on how amazing (or ridiculous) the idea of ‘free time’ would seem to most of our Tanzanian colleagues and friends. Sure they do things which they might class as ‘fun’ activities, visiting family or going to church, however our observation is that most of these activities are often borne out of a sense of duty. They may feel pressured by the community to attend church every week, or at least to attend every choir practice during the week (there can be up to 5 a week!). They may love seeing their family, but maybe there are expectations on them when they do (to bring money, or food) or maybe their relatives are in hospital and need a meal cooked for them (there is no catering provided for patients). People’s families are large and so these commitments are wide ranging, plus travel is difficult (they can’t just get into a car and drive there) so it may take hours just to get a short distance.

The idea of having an ‘evening off’, of putting their feet up and reading a book, of having a nice meal in, or for going to the cinema with ‘friends’ (the idea of ‘friends’ is a whole other blog…!) is a completely alien concept. If they do happen to have some spare time, they will often be in their ‘shamba’ (field or little farm) tending their crops to make sure they have something to eat or sell when harvest time comes. Sure, many Tanzanians will watch some TV and almost all will listen to the radio, however these times are snatched at the beginning or end of the day or while eating food. The concept of free time, I would suggest, is just not one they would recognise.

And so, as I sit in a traffic jam again on Friday evening, with thousands of other people getting frustrated that their weekend (their relaxing ‘free time’) is being eaten away, it suddenly strikes me what a perfect picture this is of what it means to be affluent! I think we can get so caught up, particularly in this current economic climate, in thinking that wealth and affluence is all about money. It’s not! It’s about the way we are able, allowed even, to live our lives. It’s about the privileges we have that we just don’t even realise! Now I understand that the world is different, and I sure don’t want Tanzania to experience traffic jams like we do just so they can say they have ‘free time’. However I do want to appreciate the immense privileges I have, all just because I was born where I was.

Of course we do have to do some ‘jobs’ on our weekends, it’s not all ‘free time’! Plus there are a few wealthier Tanzanians who would not fit into the description I’ve laid out here. However for the most part there certainly is a very large difference between our lives and the time we have allocated to ‘us’!

Maybe next time we all find ourselves in a traffic jam, instead of shouting at the drivers around us, why don’t we try and be thankful for the privileges we do have and remember those who are less well off.