I’m still waiting for my Guinean debit card to arrive, so
when I need to get money I have to go in to the bank and make a withdrawal. It was with some apprehension that I went to the
bank to make my first withdrawal (getting
money out of the bank in Senegal was usually an unpleasant, hours-long affair involving
writing yourself checks and multiple forms of ID) but, even though it was a
little confusing, it was a fairly quick and painless experience.
First, I went to a lady at a long counter and gave her my account information card and my Peace Corps ID, and she gave me a little slip of paper with my account balance written on it. After that I went to a guy sitting behind a window and handed the amount that I wanted to withdraw written on a little piece of paper, my ID, and my account info card. He took them, processed something, and gave me a slip to take to the Bank Manager’s office. I went in, apparently interrupting someone else’s chat, but he cheerfully took my slip, stamped it, signed it, had me sign it, and told me to bring it back to the guy at the window. The guy at the window looked it over and then gave me a stack of bills and a carbon copy of the receipt.
To an American, this system seems ludicrously convoluted and inefficient, but it's ok as long as there aren’t too many people in the bank. The tellers and customers all seem to be keeping track of who’s coming up to the window for the second time, and people genuinely don’t seem to mind other people popping in to have them sign something during a consultation.
For me, the whole situation really illustrated different cultural
concepts of time and task completion - in the U.S. people generally believe in
linear time, and, for all the talk of multi-tasking, in a compartmentalized way
of accomplishing tasks. We think of events happening one after another, and we
like it when things are organized along a timeline – at an American bank people
would fill out their slips, form a line, and be helped one after another; this
seems logical, efficient, and fair.
But it wouldn't necessarily seem that way to someone accustomed to a more circular concept of time, of things overlapping and looping around, and people being helped according to their status and the urgency of their request. Maybe in the eyes of the bank staff having me make four stops at three desks to withdraw money from my own account wasn't a disorderly source of confusion but a worthwhile way of preventing fraud and overdrafts; maybe it’s just the way that things are done and they would undoubtedly be irritated if I disturbed the routine.
In any case, it only took about 10 minutes to get my little brick of cash (which, despite its size, is not worth much) and even though it being a hot Ramadan afternoon everyone was polite, even the parking lot guard, who found it totally amusing when I almost knocked over a couple bikes while trying to lean my own up against a pole.
