When is it?

MAY 1—We were bleary. Yep, that’s the best word to describe the group that landed in Addis Ababa in the wee hours of the morning May 1. What passes for “sleep” on an airliner is more like a geriatric fox trying to relax in its den—resting, yes, but with a wary ear attune to interruptions and a cranky hip that can’t quite get comfortable. Our first foray after getting visas and baggage (a fairly lengthy process) was for a bed to stretch out on and a pillow to lay our heads.

Jet lag and ordinary travel disorientation are more than enough to make us lose track of time. But even in our more alert moments, dates and times in this country are an enigma of their own. Ethiopia follows the Julian calendar, which means it runs seven years behind what most of the world observes. Ethiopians celebrated the millennium last September.

The Ethiopian month also features 13 months, not 12. One of them is very short.

Ethiopian time telling makes considerable good sense, except once again it’s different from the global 24-hour standard that begins the count at midnight. The Ethiopian day starts at dawn — what we call 6 a.m. That make it’s 6 o’clock at what we call noon, and the sun goes down around 12 o’clock (Ethiopian time that is).

None of these differences are too hard to figure out. The confusion comes when you’re not sure which system is being used.