DOES TIME REALLY STOPS IN ASMARA?

Days can be dragged on for hours and hours. Hours can be dragged on for ages and ages. But years slip from your hands even if you try to hold on to them as much as you can. Throughout the years philosophers as much as scientists and literates tried to explain this fact in different theories. Never the less regardless of how simple and explicable the theories might be it will always remain an incognita of our thoughts. Sometimes we rush through life and we completely lose track of time and we find ourselves in the middle of this jungle we call world. Other times nevertheless of how many times we look at the watch it feels like the universe froze and the world is not revolving as it should.

One of the many theories that I personally find close to our touts is the famous British literate Virginia Woolf’s, in which she clarifies and distinguishes between internal and external time. While the external time is the same always and forever, the internal time differs from person to person and from time to time.

In one of her most important novels in fact she talks about this woman that while doing some housework something triggers her mind to a memory of hers that for a long time was lost deep in her subconscious. Starting from that she remembers a piece of her life. A piece of her life that lasted for a long period of time. In reality only few minutes passed but in reviving her memory she paces through an entire period of her past that lasted for months if not for years.

After Virginia Woolf this theory was expanded and it was studied more and more but the main point remains alike. Throughout the years in fact two contrasting viewpoints on time divide many prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Time travels, in this way time itself becomes a possibility as other “times” persist like frames of a film strip, spread out across the time line.

The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of “container” that events and objects “move through”, nor to any entity that “flows”, but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure, meaning time is not measurable nor can it be travelled.

So yes the clock counts the seconds in the same way day or night: just because you are sleeping peacefully during the night and you are probably dreaming about a fantasy or a utopia look alike world time doesn’t fly by. Not only doesn’t it remain the same at all times it doesn’t have feelings towards us human that relentlessly try to make the most of it.

As for my fellow Asmarinos time is always flying away. But yet again we get to have all the time we need to do and have plenty of time left. It’s ironic how unlike the other parts of this world with a similar problem , we don’t have jobs that demand a lot of time, we don’t have traffic that could obstacle our drives from place to place and in reality you can drive from one end of the city to the other in half an hour.

I think that the main point is the fact that we have a culture in which “appreciation” is very eminent. Meaning Eritrean people are really good at working hard in accomplishing their tasks and be grateful by the outcomes they get. And of course in a place where every soul is joyful and thankful we spare the little time we have left in making some good memories with friends and families.

Maybe this is why it is hard to find an Eritrean resident complaining of the escaping hours.  What I’m trying to explain will definitely be agreed by whoever spent even the smallest amount of time in Eritrea and for those who haven’t been here yet, the Eritrean people will gladly welcome you and show you how the roots of good manners and culture has thought us Eritreans the art of appreciation.

So… come and experience for yourself.