Well I am getting to know the town more and more. I’ve been on two long, beautiful walks - to the gorge and to the river. I can see the gorge in the distance through my bedroom window, but I didn’t really know what to expect. The walk itself was wonderful as we went through lovely fields. But when we got to the gorge it was stunning, so peaceful and so perfect.
The river I went to today is also beautiful and it’s just around the corner from my house. We went along the river for some distance when we spotted a farmer waving a stick at us on the hills above. We stopped and it turned out that he was telling us to go no further. Luckily we had an Ethiopian friend with us so she was able to explain that we were just there to look at the river and nothing else. But still he was insistent that we turn back. So she asked him why and he replied that there were creatures there that would harm us. We didn’t believe him, but turned back nonetheless as we were afraid of the stick he was waving more than anything else!
A note on Ethiopian time:
Ethiopians use the ancient Coptic calendar (unlike in the UK where we use the Gregorian calendar). It includes twelve 30-day months and a 13th month of five days (six days in leap years). This means they are in the first month of the year 2004 currently. Actually the first day I arrived in Ethiopia was new years day here.
Ethiopians also use a 12-hour clock (rather than a 24 hour clock like we do) with one cycle of 1 to 12 from dawn to dusk, and the other cycle from dusk to dawn. The start of the day is 6 o’clock in the morning, rather than midnight. This means that you need to specify whether you are talking about daytime or night time as there is no am/pm.
(Are you still with me?)
Therefore, 7am would be 1 o’clock in daylight hours in local Ethiopian time. Basically you just add or subtract 6 hours to work out the time. This is called Habesha time.
When foreigners make appointments or any kind of arrangements including the time it is vital to know whether you are talking about ‘Ferengi’ (foreigner) time or ‘Habesha’ (Ethiopian) time. When I make an appointment to go for a walk with my Ethiopian friends at 9 o’clock in the daytime it means 3pm for me. I think I’m getting used to it.…
It's so amazing!! It's mind blowing what you are experiencing!! It will cause your soul to EXPAND... to be able to take in a LARGER view of the world but still as humans we see little...
ReplyDeleteAnd you have great writing skills btw... Great narrative, keep it up and make sure you have a copy of everything you write... One day your children will read it and admire you inshAllah :-)