Time Discombobulated (Scott's)

By no means am I a globetrotter, but I’ve traveled to a variety of countries in my life encompassing a few different cultures: Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia, Iceland, Bolivia, Canada, Switzerland, England, and Ethiopia.  But Ethiopia was the first country in which I found a different way to read a clock and I was totally unprepared for this bit of culture shock.  Zambia had a different spin on time in that when something was supposed to happen at a particular time it usually happened one to two hours later, but the clock was still read in the familiar 'western' style of time keeping, where noon and midnight are indicated by the number ‘12’, and sunrise and sunset occur somewhere around the number ‘6’ depending on what time of year it is. 

My first indication of a different way to read a clock as I traveled Ethiopia was when I saw a clock in a restaurant read 3 o’clock when it was 9 pm.  I figured someone had not set it correctly and simply had the clock displayed as decoration.  A second indication was when we were talking to a local Ethiopian about the timing of the call to prayer for the orthodox Christians in the town of Axum, with the idea that we might go to the local church and experience that part of the culture here since Ethiopia is considered the birthplace of orthodox Christianity, and Axum was considered the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.  The earliest time for prayer according to our hotel manager was 11 o’clock.  “Great!” we thought, we’d be able to sleep in.  But when we thought about how we had heard a call to prayer much earlier, such as before sunrise, we inquired further.  It turns out that the 11 o’clock that he was talking about was indeed before sunrise, at what we would call 5 o’clock in the morning.  After more interrogation we learned that 6 o’clock in the way I am used to reading a clock is actually 12 o’clock in the day in the way Ethiopians read a clock.  And 3 o’clock Ethiopian time could be either 9 at night or 9 in the morning 'western' time.  And a typical breakfast or late dinner (Ethiopian time) would be 2 o’clock in the morning or 2 o’clock in the night, respectively.  As best I could figure Ethiopians start their hours with the sunrise or sunset.  After Gina and I wrapped our heads around this concept we decided that this made a lot of sense.  But I still was not convinced that this different time culture was regularly practiced.  It was just too weird.  It was like a prank Ethiopians might pull on western tourists.  However, over the next week or more I took notice of any clock I happened to see and any wristwatch or phone I might glance at while on the bus or sitting down for food.   Sure enough, I saw bell-tower clocks, smart phones, wrist watches, and business hour postings confirming that, yes, Ethiopians in general do keep time to a clock that starts the counting of hours based on the sunrise and sunset.  1 hour after sunrise is 1 o’clock in the morning.  11 hours after sunrise is 11 o’clock in the day.  3 hours after sunset is 3 o’clock at night.  10 hours after sunset is 10 o’clock at night.   A business hour posting for a pharmacy posts its hours as 2 to 6 and 8 to 12.  That is, in 'western' time they are open from 8 am to 12 noon, closed 2 hours for lunch, and open again from 2 pm to 6 pm.  A hotel posts the hours of its laundry service as 1 in the morning to 2 in the evening.  In 'western' time that is 7 am to 8 pm.   A few exceptions I found seem to be in places where the service provider worked with Europeans or tourists in general on a regular basis.  For example, the smart phone for our guide on our trek in the Tigrai region and the clock in the Ethiopian Airlines office both indicated time in the way I or any other European would expect. 

Ethiopian time didn’t stop being different from 'western' time with just the reading of the clock face.  The monthly calendar in Ethiopia has 13 months, 12 of which are without exception 30 days, and the thirteenth month is 5 or 6 days depending on whether it is a leap year or not.  Their new year starts on what we know as September 11 (or Sept 12 in a leap year), so that what they consider the first month of the year is actually our mid-September to mid-October.   Their final month (albeit short) is from early September to September 10 (or Sept 11 in a leap year).  To finish off the discombobulation, their yearly calendar is 7 or 8 years behind the Gregorian calendar, depending on what time of year you are comparing the Ethiopian calendar to the Gregorian.  Thus, 2013 is actually 2006 on the Ethiopian calendar (if you were in Ethiopia on September 10, 2013 western time you would be celebrating New Year's Eve 2005).  This difference in years is apparently due to a difference in calculations for the Annunciation of Jesus.  Summed up, the date October 30, 2013 at 4 pm as Europeans know it would be, in Ethiopia, the 19^th day of the 2^nd month of 2006 at 10 o’clock in the day.  Some say this difference in reading the clock and the calendar in Ethiopia is shared with adjacent Eritrea, though I haven't actually talked to any Eritrean's to confirm.  Fortunately, Ethiopians familiar with American or European interactions take pity on us and, if they caught themselves giving Ethiopian time to us when we inquired about when something was supposed to happen or what time it was at the moment, they quickly corrected themselves to say it in 'western' time.