One of the more confusing aspects of the culture here is the presence of Swahili time. Swahili time is based on the sunrise and sunset, rather than midnight and noon. Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 6 a.m. and sets at around 6 p.m. in most of the areas where Swahili speakers reside. This means that 7 a.m. is "hour one morning", while 7 p.m. is "hour one evening". I've found that locals exclusively use Swahili time unless explicitly noted. This caused some confusion when I agreed to a meeting at what I thought was 2 p.m., while it was actually at 8 a.m. I've quickly learned to specify exactly which time system people are referring to.
In addition to the confusion over daily time keeping, the days of the week are also offset from standard time. The first day of the week is Saturday, which is literally spoken as 'the first of the week.' As you can imagine, I learned the hard way discovering these small differences in time keeping. It's not often that you find yourself in an argument about which day of the week it is or what time it is, but before I became aware of Swahili time, this is exactly the bizarre situation I found myself in.
In addition to the confusion over daily time keeping, the days of the week are also offset from standard time. The first day of the week is Saturday, which is literally spoken as 'the first of the week.' As you can imagine, I learned the hard way discovering these small differences in time keeping. It's not often that you find yourself in an argument about which day of the week it is or what time it is, but before I became aware of Swahili time, this is exactly the bizarre situation I found myself in.
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