Egyptian Time

Live in Cairo, and one of the first things you will realize is this: Egyptians don’t seem to be looking at the same clock as you.

You will plan to meet at a café at 3, and they will show up at 3:30.

The party invite will say 9 PM, you’ll show up at 10, and you’ll still be too early.

Ahmed will tell you to expect a call from him next weekend, and it will be next April before your phone rings.

Welcome to Egyptian Time. This is a cultural oddity that has frustrated thousands of foreigners over the years, and will no doubt continue to do so. Egyptians, plain and simple, are late. Almost always. They will give you a time and, almost inevitably, you will be stuck sitting at a table or standing at a metro stop while they frantically send you Whatsapp messages promising “five more minutes.”

It’s weird, a bit confusing, and, above all, endlessly frustrating.

But how to deal with it? How do you come face to face with Egyptian Time, and emerge on the other side?

Here at Cleo Lingo, we believe you really only have three options

1. You leave Egypt forever. You pack up your bags, say good-bye, and hop on whatever mode of transportation brought you here. You’ve been made to wait too many times; this is the last straw. No more koshary, but you’ll never have to deal with Egyptian Time again.
2. You stay in Egypt and get angry. You let every Egyptian know how unprofessional it is, how disrespectful it is to your time, and how you’d never do this to them. You bust out your world-famous attitude every time you get there first, and for every minute that they are late, you come up with a new insult.
3. You take a chill pill. You take a couple puffs of shisha, drink another Stella, and thank the heavens that you suddenly have so much time to mindlessly scroll through Instagram.

I never considered choice one. The allure of cheap chicken and funny-looking camels was just too powerful.

But choice two?

Yup, guiltier than most.

For my first year or so in Cairo, I had this weird image in my head every time somebody was late.

All Egyptians were out to get me. They were all scheming together in some big giant room somewhere, purposely setting back their watches and unplugging their alarm clocks just to keep me waiting. And every time I had an appointment, a work meeting, or a date, there would be a giant meeting. Egyptians from all corners of the country would take a vote on just how long they should keep me. Once the votes were tallied (with me being entertained by messages of “five more minutes”), they would put their plan in action. They would send my friend or boss or Egyptian love interest my way, and anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours late, they would arrive.

It was some sort of Arab Truman Show on crack.

Needless to say, I had a chip on my shoulder. Egyptians just didn’t respect my time, and for almost a full year, I would roll my eyes anytime anybody wanted to meet up.

Then I realized something: HOW ARROGANT OF ME!

I was in a different country, on a mission to soak up as much of the culture as I could, and I expected everybody to watch the clock as obsessively as I did. It was a losing combination.

I’m going to tell you the truth. Three years later, I still find it annoying, and just a tiny bit disrespectful. That being said, here’s the most important thing to take away from today’s Culture Corner……

Egyptians don’t intend it to be.

 The people of Egypt aren’t out to get you, and there is no secret meeting where they are making plans to mess with your schedule. That’s just how things are, and Egyptians complain about the culture’s tardiness just as much as foreigners do. The sooner you can transition from step 2 to step 3, the better.

So, in the spirit of openness, and with a healthy dose of “just not giving a f***,” here’s something that might help you out.

Call it Cleo Lingo’s Egyptian Time Translator.

What Egyptians say.	What they really mean.
“Five minutes.” khamas daayee خمس دقايق	15 minutes.
“Ten minutes.” ashwuer daayee عشر دقايق	Half an hour.
“Half an hour.” noss saa نص ساعة	Between one and two hours.
“Next week.” el-esboaw el-gaii الاسبوع الجاي	Definitely not next week, but hopefully within the next month.
“Next month.” el-shahr el-gaii الشهر الجاي	Anyone’s guess, but be sure to ask me in case I forget.
“Tomorrow, insha’alla.” bokra- insha’alla بكرة ان شاء الله	Never.

It’s useful to note that this is, of course, a generalization. Not all Egyptians are late all the time, and not all Egyptians understate how far away they are from you at any given point.

But it happens enough. Trust us when we say that. Best to be prepared.

So take it in stride. Like many things in Egypt, this may be the only time of your life where you are able to experience something so “un-Western.”

And that, however annoying it may be, is pretty cool.

Egyptian Time may be annoying, but hey……you’ve never had so much reading time before.