Today's culture lesson from an unwilling student

One of the great things about traveling is learning about new cultures. You can learn that some things are really great, perhaps even better than what you're used to in your "real" life. You can appreciate some things that seem quirky or eccentric because they add to the sense of adventure you're experiencing. You can learn to tolerate some things that you will either never feel comfortable with or completely understand.

And then there are things that just seem plain wrong. Today's lesson is on telling time Swahili-style.

Look at the clock above. Look at where the numbers are located. Imagine the big hand pointing toward the 12 and the little pointing at the 7. 7:00, right? And you'd never confuse whether it was morning or night because the context of any conversation would tell you what time you were referring to.

NOW...renumber the clock so that there is a 6 where the 12 is, a 7 where the 1 is, and so on. Go on, do it on paper. The clock will be renumbered so that each number is now directly across from where it is on the "standard" clock.

Now imagine the big hand pointing straight up and the little hand pointing toward the 7. It's no longer 7:00...now it's 1:00. Morning or night? The actual position of the hands indicates that it could be morning or evening. Not the time of 1:00.

To make it more interesting, when the time is written out, they wouldn't write one o'clock--they actually write seven o'clock!

So...when I read seven o'clock, I need to mentally move around the dial to understand they really mean one o'clock and then translate the words into Swahili, and then try to remember if they meant am or pm. And maybe they said some other important things during that conversation, too--not that I would know, because I would be hopelessly hung up on getting the time figured out.

There are no "Swahili clocks", by the way. Just the kind we all have. And you will always have to clarify whether you are talking Swahili time or English time when making arrangements.

Hmmm...

(to be culturally fair, I should mention that Mark has picked this up pretty easily--which is annoying--so I suppose it could be just me)