Confusing Calendar

Adjusting to Ethiopia is continuing well, and I estimate that it will take approximately 26 more months to become completely acclimated to the culture and language.  Each day in class I learn something new about Ethiopia that makes me say to myself, "Oooooh! My Ethiopian family makes a little more sense now!"  I will attempt to summarize a couple of the cultural differences I am learning about so you can begin to understand Ethiopia a little bit better.

Time Schedules:
Well, let's first start with the Ethiopian calendar.  Most of the world has adopted the Gregorian calendar that contains the 12-month-system I have known my whole life.  Ethiopia remains on a completely separate system.  Their calendar has 12 months, each with 30 days, and then a 13th month with just five days (or six if it is a leap year, which, of course, does not coincide with the Gregorian leap year).  It's not that simple though, their calendar begins on the day we call September 11.  And, it's still 2001.

Thoroughly confused yet?
The time is also different!  When the sun rises (6am) here it is 12:00.  The day progresses accordingly, so what we refer to as noon is 6:00 in Ethiopia.  This means making a simple plan with your family for dinner involves a quick time calculation.  This also makes conveying that "New Years" is approaching incredibly difficult, as here it is four months into their year.  Christmas had its own complications as well since the religions here celebrate it on January 7 (Gregorian calendar).  Ok, my head hurts now.

Punctuality:
Being on time here is not exactly a priority.  Many times meetings are made by just naming a day in the future you care to meet and then just showing up at the person's workplace sometime that day.  And I have been told that sometimes the person you want to meet with may then be out of town or away for a few hours without a precise schedule.  As someone who is typically running slightly behind schedule, you would think that this culture would embrace me whole-heartedly, but it is not that simple.  Being a ferenji, I am expected to have a plan and stick to it.
 
Just the other day a note was given to the host families detailing our Christmas plans.  Peace Corps took us to Lake Wenchi for the day for a little adventure and a day off of school on Christmas Day.  That night they had a dinner for us at a nearby hotel, which the note said, lasts until 9pm.  Well, after our white-elephant gift exchange ended and we finally concluded our night of mini-celebration, I arrived home a little after 10pm.  I was received with less-than-open-arms and I even got a "shame shame" finger point! Oops!  

At our Peace Corps Christmas gift exchange.

Spending Christmas away from home was hard enough without having disappointed the host family by exceeding my curfew.  The following morning I waited for my breakfast, which is usually ready around 7:30am, so I can leave by 7:40am and make the 20-minute walk to the Technical College by 8am.  At 7:55am I decided to just leave my compound assuming there would be no breakfast, and I grabbed a Fiber One granola bar from the small stash I have remaining.  As I walked out of my compound I ran into my sister who was apparently just about to serve me breakfast, and through broken Amharic, she just could not understand why breakfast was not my first priority.  This confrontation went on a few minutes and I finally left in tears; my first Ethiopia breakdown.

The situation alone was not stressful enough to trigger crying, but paired with the scolding the night before, realizing I missed American Christmas, and my failure to communicate "I am late" caused my world to momentarily fall apart.  I spent that day picking up the pieces and being consoled by incredibly supportive new friends.  When all is said and done, this breakdown will undoubtedly pale in comparison to future breakdowns; crying is just one of my coping mechanisms.  That night though my sister gave me an envelope with a singing Christmas card inside, along with a couple pieces of chocolate.  It made the events of the previous 24-hours seem so insignificant.  Things will inevitably get lost in translation. If it isn't my lack of punctuality, or minimal knowledge of Amharic, it will certainly be the difference in clocks and calendars.  Nevertheless, it is all a part of being a Peace Corps volunteer!