Extract from the story " Seyssinet-Pariset/Addis-Abeba - November 2015- July 2020 - Small chaotic chronicles of various commitments " by Hervé Doulat.
Ethiopia calendar, date and time
Traveling to Ethiopia is one of the most brutal culture shocks possible for a Westerner. Everything will be a source of varied emotions, from the magnificent landscapes to the extreme poverty of the population. And it is even up to the time and calendar system that the exoticism is pushed to its paroxysm, judge rather.
First of all, the calendar. Ethiopia is a country of Orthodox Christian culture and therefore has the Julian calendar as a reference when most of the Western countries, and the international time system, use the Gregorian calendar, the one in force in Switzerland as in France in particular. The year in Ethiopia is made up of twelve 30-day months followed by a “little thirteenth month” consisting of 5 or 6 epagomenal days (5 days for normal years and 6 days for leap years). The Ethiopian calendar takes as its starting point August 30, year 8 of the Julian calendar, i.e. September 11, year 8 of the Gregorian calendar. There is therefore a double gap between our calendar and the Ethiopian calendar: 8 years and 13 days of "delay" on ours, which makes the correspondences difficult to calculate ...
For example, at the time of this writing, we are the 1er July 2020 but in Addis Ababa, the city wakes up on June 18, 2012 ...
Fortunately (for us!), As with all fringe systems, the international date system is widely used in Ethiopia and Ethiopians are used to juggling the two for tourism or international trade. The fact remains that the dates appearing on official signs and documents should be read with caution ...
As if the date were not enough, the Ethiopian time is also an endemic system ... This system has always pleased us a lot with Eric, by its practicality and easy to use and convert. Indeed, the time system starts at sunrise at 6:00 am in international time, where it is then 0:00. In other words, the time it is corresponding to the length of your day since you got up. Because yes, in a country with 80% agricultural, everyone gets up at dawn ...
This may seem strange to us because in Europe, like everywhere outside the tropics, the time of daylight varies considerably. But Ethiopia, which is in a tropical zone, sees the length of its days and nights vary very little throughout the year, making this time system perfectly suited.
We often used Ethiopian time with Eric during our stays, for example with our taxi driver to meet him at the hotel. " Two hours local time OK ? ". Not only does this limit the risk of error, Ethiopians are still more familiar with local time even if they have a good command of international time, but this system immediately gives you a precise idea of the time you will have. to prepare you. It is easily calculated using the following formula:
Time to prepare = Ethiopian time - fat morning
Practical, isn't it?
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