best excuse for missing a meeting

I learned how to tell time this morning in my Kiswahili lesson, which nearly had me laughing hysterically for a few minutes. Here’s how my teacher explained it to me:

In Kiswahili time, 4 o’clock is 10 o’clock.
2 o’clock is 8 o’clock.
10 o’clock is 4 o’clock.
11:30 is 5:30.

Getting the picture? If the time is between 12:01 (0:01 in 24-hour clock) and 6, you add 6 hours and if it’s between 6:01 and 12, you subtract 6 hours. The convention is that if you’re speaking in English, you use western time and if you’re speaking in Kiswahili you use Kiswahili time. But if you didn’t know this convention, this would be how a (literally translated) conversation would sound…

Me: The meeting is at 10 o’clock?
Njiro: Ndiyo, saakumi. [Yes, 4 o’clock.]
Me: Okay, see you at 10.
Njiro: Sawa, nitakuona saakumi. [Yep, see you at 4.]

So yep, time is six hours off.

Granted, there is a very logical reason for this odd and confusing methodology for time. The beginning of the day here starts when the sun rises, as opposed to western time where the beginning of the day is the middle of the night (midnight). So sunrise is 0 and an hour after sunrise is 1. Since the sun rises at 6, that produces the weird result of adding and subtracting 6 hours from the time. (So an hour after sunrise is 1 o’clock here, which is 7 in western time.)

However, this morning my teacher didn’t actually explain the logic behind this weird time system, she just kept quizzing me on how to say half-past five and quarter of nine and seeing if I could add and subtract in Kiswahili. I didn’t find out the reason for the adding and subtracting until I got to work and asked one of my coworkers.

Though all this is essentially a mute point since time isn’t exactly followed to the letter here- punctuality is definitely not a trait on this continent. (I can only imagine the heart failure that Swiss nationals must have everyday here.) If the meeting starts at 4 (saakumi), it’s perfectly acceptable to show up at 4:45 (saakumi na moja kasorobo), and then act surprised that the meeting has already started.

So next time you want to skip that 9 o’clock meeting, try explaining that you thought the meeting was 3 o’clock because you thought the office had switched to Tanzanian time for the day, and that may get you out of having missed it. (Or it may get you fired, in which case you can come visit me, and if you bring me chocolate chips I’ll let you stay with me and you can meet all the bugs in my house.)