Ethiopian Calendar and Clock

Woo- hoo! I’m seven years younger out here! According to the Ethiopian Calendar (based on the Coptic Calendar), it is only 1999 here and their new millenium celebrations are on September 27th, 2007 – I’m 26 again!  The way the clocks work out here help us party like it too! 

Their clock system actually makes a lot of sense.  They go by 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night.  So when daylight starts at 6am, it is 00:00 – after one our of daylight (7am standard time), it is 1 in the day.  After 2 hours of daylight, it is 2 o’clock in the day.  On the other hand, sunset is at 6pm standard time, and after one hour of darkness, it is 1 o’clock in the night.  Since they don’t have daylight savings time out here, it works all year around…

But it can mess you up too.  If you’re told to be somewhere at 3 in the next morning, they mean 9am.  Last week I was told to be at a flight at 8 the next day, I showed up at 7am.  Turned out they meant 10 Ethiopian time thus 2pm standard time… wasn’t a happy camper…

Regardless – millenium party is in September out here! Who’s in??