It's about time

Time is more fluid in Ethiopia. True, they use the standard GMT clock for like, airplane departures and such, but the vast majority of the country tells time like this: the day starts when the sun comes up. Because they are so close to the equator, they don't have a lot of variation between sunrise and sunset. It pretty much happens at 6 am and 6 pm every day.

So, 6 am becomes midnight. 7 am is 1 am. 8 am is 2 am, etc. Therefore, you eat breakfast at 2 or 3 am, have lunch around 6 am, and afternoon coffee around 9 am. You eat dinner at noon, and go to bed at 4 or 5 pm.

The guide books warn you to check with someone if they are giving you an Ethiopian time or a Roman time. Wish I had paid attention to that. I made an appointment to meet someone at the school at 10 am. When he didn't show, I went on with my day and didn't worry too much about it. At about 5 pm, Muday got a phone call from my friend. He was a the school waiting for me. Yep, you got it, he was on Ethiopian time.

Here's another interesting tidbit: the Ethiopian calendar has 13 months. Twelve months of 30 days and one month of five days (six in a Leap Year). So ... over the centuries, our two calendars have drifted apart. In Ethiopia, it's the year 2002. Meaning that if you really want to time travel, Addis is your kind of town!