Telling Time

I got a call from a friend in Tanzania last week. One of the guards at the office, the one who named his son Milton because of my dad, called me to say hello and see how I was doing. It was a lovely conversation and I enjoyed the brief chat (including video!)

At one point he asked me what time it was here and it reminded that I've never written about how Tanzanians tell time!

You know how Jesus was crucified at the "third hour" of the morning and that means 9am? Well, Tanzanians tell time the same way.

7am is 1 o'clock, 8am is 2 o'clock, 9am is 3 o'clock, so on and so forth.

My ability to communicate accurately about time was made additionally complicated because all of my clocks are in military time. So, I would see that it was 14:00, know that that means 2pm, and then have to translate that into Swahili 9 o'clock.

Thanks to much practice and "having a head for numbers" I did alright in regards to telling time in Tanzania. It is also something I miss about being there and I thought it would be fun to share the joy of telling time with math.