15 Jul Slow Fast Food in the Transkei

I was waiting in the car for what felt like forever in the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Port St. Johns, Eastern Cape, South Africa. My friend ran in to grab some snacks to munch on during our hike. It was the end of an eight-hour day spent jumping in and out of a boat looking for dolphins, whales, sharks and other wildlife, so we were hungry and determined.

I ran inside to see what was going on while Ben, a mysterious—not in a romantic way, just plain mysterious like you could never guess what was crossing his mind—French shark documentary filmmaker I met on the boat, waited in the car. There was a small crowd forming a loose semicircle. No one was doing anything. Time seemed frozen, almost. No one was checking their phones or chatting. Just waiting. Numbers were being called once every now and then, but not ours. There was no hustling in the kitchen. No swooping movements to scoop fries or throwing together of burgers with factory-like efficiency. 

Coming from China and the US—the two economic powerhouses of the world—I have never experienced this kind of lack of urgency. Time was not a currency here. You wouldn’t have to slot a friend into your Google calendar and fast food didn’t need to come in a fast manner. 

There was neither concern for the wait nor impatience for your meal. If KFC took this long for where I’m from, people would be livid. I turned to Hamza, Ben’s filmmaking and general shenanigans partner, and asked what was going on. He shrugged and said that he didn’t know, but it seems to be taking a while. I told him that you should probably ask where our food is since half an hour had already passed. 

“Sorry, we don’t have the double crunch burger,” the KFC manager said. “But, we can give you two singles instead.”

I was doing the math in my head and kept wondering why you couldn’t just put two singles together to make a double. We kept waiting for another 10 minutes as we saw the half-made burgers sit on the counter. 

“There’s small towns like this in Algeria too,” Hamza said.

I believe there’s a term for this phenomena: ‘Africa time.’

***

The day before, I was with my host family at an Afrikaans church camp weekend. There was a group of 16-17 year old girls curious about my accent and my life in America. Their impression of America was purely from vlogging and social media. They knew about Target and Walmart, asking if it was common to see vloggers walking around supermarkets. 

“Do you see famous people everywhere in America?” they asked. “It looks so cool on TV.”

One girl asked if I tried the KFC here. I said no, I haven’t. She said that it’s so good and that I need to try some, so I had to go when I got to Port St. Johns. Another girl in the group asked if we had KFC in America. 

The young pastor who had spent time traveling in the US laughed, “Where do you think the Kentucky in Kentucky Fried Chicken is?”

With this funny little exchange, I’m always reminded that people around the world know so much more about the US than Americans about other places because of America’s global media dominance. 

***

Once I got back to my host family’s house a few days later, I told Nadia, my host sister, about my KFC experience in the Eastern Cape. I asked her if the chicken used at KFC was local.

“Why would it not be fresh?” she asked.

I told her that the chicken at KFC in America came frozen and processed with no bones in it. I added that I have a lot of American friends that get freaked out by bones in meat because they’ve only eaten boneless wings and can’t handle any bones. 

“I don’t think we have the technology to process food like that,” she said, bewildered.

***

Patience and food for me don’t mix, but waiting 45 minutes in a KFC really taught me that there is a certain value in slowing things down. In a modern age where anxiety seems to have taken over many industrialized regions of the world, it’s necessary to learn how to wait with yourself and nothing else. Life doesn’t need to be an endless cycle of rushing through everything and you don’t need constant entertainment to keep you distracted from your worries. 

Just stop and notice all of the little happenings or not happenings around you and forget that time exists every now and then. For that moment, don’t think about tomorrow and trust that your food will come eventually, hopefully. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll be okay because you’ll figure something out. 

By the time we got our food, it was already too late to do the short hike we wanted as the sun was going down. The three of us headed to Second Beach after seeing a cow blocking the muddy road leading up to the hike. 

Under the shark warning sign, we unpacked the KFC goodies. They forgot one of the cokes.

I’ve never really liked KFC in America, but damn KFC in South Africa is good. Spiced and flavorful, the chicken was clearly freshly prepared with all the bones and juices still in it. Even the fries were seasoned and tasted like actual potatoes without that weird hollowness of pre-frozen fries. 

You could taste the 45 minute wait, the inefficient and somewhat unnecessarily long prep time—and it was delicious.