Meeting Etiquette

Kenyans love meetings. As a result I go to a lot of them. You can have a meeting for pretty much anything. Sometimes it's a regularly scheduled meeting for a community group or staff meeting, other times there may be a guest coming to talk to people, outreach by a health clinic etc. Regardless of the reason meetings provide people with a chance to see friends and community members. Sometimes I genuinely enjoy meetings, but there are some key differences from meetings in Kenya, some of which drive me crazy. My biggest issue with Kenyan meetings is time. People will generally tell you a time a meeting is going to start. I have yet to see a meeting start on time. If a meeting starts within an hour of the proposed time I'm impressed. Now I tend to show up about an hour after the "start time" and still tend to be the first or second person to arrive. I am concerned about what this will result in when I get back to America and people intentionally show up early. A few days ago I was waiting for a meeting to start. When it was over 3 hours late starting I had to leave as I had a prior obligation. I feel like 3 hours is excessive. By that point I've usually run out of tasks to occupy myself and have become hungry, not unlike a small child. Meetings once they start take a long time. Several hours (2-3) is pretty standard. Part of the reason is that not only is there some sot of agenda, but the meetings tend to be more social and everyone must be properly greeted. Another reason meetings can seem never ending are the speeches that people give. If at any point a government official, community leader, special visitor, shows up a meeting the meeting will come to a halt as people expect that person, who is viewed as as honoured guest, to give a speech. The speech is almost never tailored to the group or subject of the meeting and can go on for a long amount of time. Thankfully the groups I work with no longer have me give introductory speeches. If there is a visitor however, I am expected to introduce myself through a speech to that person. It can be awkward. All visitors are expected to introduce themselves, which is typically a sentence or two, something that I think is fairly universal. When I specifically am dragged up to the front of the church to introduce myself, instead of being able to do so from the pew like everyone else, it can feel a bit uncomfortable. The most awkward was when I went to a pre-wedding (kind of like an engagement party but more formal) and my Canadian room mate and I were made to sit in the front of the church, in place of the bride's parents. Then we had to give a speech. My language skills were not sufficient, I had been at my site for less than a month and Magan (my room mate) refused to stand up. Afterwards the parents of the bride thanked us for coming and supporting their daughter, they were not upset about giving up their seats. That brings me to another quirk of Kenyan meetings---seating. Where you sit is important, as is what you sit upon as it shows your status. People are thrown off by the fact that I generally don't care where I'm sitting as long as there is shade. I am not a fan of the sun's ability to fry me. Most times I end up giving up and sitting wherever people tell me to, usually at the front near the chairman. I feel terrible when someone gives up their chair for me, but typically the refuse to keep it in spite of my insistence. The "committee" is usually seated in the best places. The committee is usually made up of the chairperson, secretary and treasurer of a group. Any guests or village leaders are given good seats as well. Next come men and then women, usually young women are the ones standing if there aren't enough chairs. Seating in such a way gives respect to important people and also can help direct a meeting as those leading it are clustered together. During meetings there are often several interruptions made by phone calls. Sometimes the person receiving the call will step a few feet away to take the call or even ignore it, but more often they will carry on a conversation. There is a group I work with whose chairlady has yet to take less than 3 calls during a meeting. I think it wouldn't bother me so much if she wasn't answering the phone while she was in the middle of a sentence. We all wait patiently until she finishes her calls and completes what she was saying. People don't think taking a call is rude. It may have something to do with the importance of greeting people, the newness of cell phones and the fact that placing a call costs money, but receiving one doesn't. Women who are breastfeeding bring their babies to meetings. There is no formula in the village, so until a child is old enough for porridge, the baby is entirely dependant on breast milk. Often other women want to hold the baby, much the in America. It's very different once the baby starts crying. The easiest solution is to feed the child, so the woman will begin breast feeding, sometimes in the middle of a speech, and that is totally normal. Breast feeding happens more often here likely due to the fact that n one in my village owns a pacifier. It is not scandalous to breast feed in public, unlike in America. Personally I don't understand why people freak out so much about it, maybe my view has been influenced by my time in Kenya. Meetings are generally fairly solemn affairs, sometimes there's soda, but otherwise not all that much happens. For that reason I will never forget the time a fight broke out during a dispensary staff meeting over how much money people should contribute for food. On that note, I think that's all I have to say about meetings in Kenya.