Does anyone really know what time it is?

I'm not being facetious when I ask this question.  After all,  I know people reading my blog are from Ontario, Manitoba, Southampton, UK, Switzerland, Oregon, USA and even Thailand so of course I know to factor in different time zones.  Well, TIA, try factoring in a completely different method of calculating time.  Does it not stand to reason that since it is the year 2006 in Ethiopia that it almost seems perfectly normal that Ethiopian time naturally follows different rules as well?  No?  Well,  although Ethiopia follows the East African Time (EAT)  and abide by UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) they also follow a very non-traditional approach to calculating the time of day .  Paul maintains that it makes perfect sense which I guess is why he had to explain it to me over and over and over again.  So imagine if you will a day that starts at the first hour (1)  and continues to the second hour (2) and continues its natural course to 12 (finally a good number I can work with!!).  Ethiopians feel it's redundant to be keeping time when you are sleeping so why not limit their clock to 12 day time hours rather than the 24 hour clock the rest of the World uses?  I don't get it, how do Ethiopians know what time it is at the start of the day?  Does everyone get up at the same time, eat at the same time and go to sleep at the same time?  Well no of course not!  I must say Paul was very patient as he explained (again) Ethiopia's unique time keeping.  What you need to do, if you want to grasp it is throw out the concept of a 24 hr clock.  So basically visualize a 12 hour clock, but remember the day starts at 1 (6 am on our clock) and by the 6th hour you have reached Noon, except in Ethiopia they call it 6.  Again, do no think of 6 as AM or PM it's just 6 (the 6th hour).  Your body naturally tells you it's time to eat.  Then 6 hrs later it's now 12 (6 pm for us) and you eat again. The time then starts again at 1 again and before you reach the next 6 hours you are fast asleep. Most Ethiopians do not use this clock in the business world, but amongst each other  it is very common to refer to time in terms of hours from 1 - 12 hours. I guess it makes sense to them, but I can't help thinking that there is so much room for confusion. This whole topic of time came up the day Abera called us to advice that the painting we had asked him to make for us was ready.  He called us Saturday morning and said he would meet us at 6 Ethiopian time.  I thought that was kind of late in the day until Paul explained that 6 Ethiopian time was actually noon.  Really??  Wish he had just said that.  So I am not a convert on this time business and will continue to use our tried and true 24 hour clock with AM and PM.  No need to confuse things further as I continually need to adjust my time clock as it is to Ontario and Southampton time differences.  It would be just too much to have to reconcile 2 time calculators (6 hr difference to our calculations) within the same city of Addis Ababa.  TIA, but I will stick with time keeping I learned back in elementary school.  In this case, I'm just too old to learn new tricks.

Paul has just mentioned that this unique spin on calculating the time based on the hours in the day is unique to all of East Africa!!  Gosh, can hardly wait to get to Tanzania for our family Safari.  Hopefully we're on time!!  

Clock gone wild! Ethiopians persist in being 6 hours behind. Why???

East African clock , before Ethiopians take a spin at it.