What's 3 o'clock?

Ramadan started the night of the 11th of August here in Senegal and I'm fasting as part of my neverending campaign to prove that white people aren't total wimps. And of course also to show solidarity with my host family. The funny part is, we're three days in and two people have already quit fasting. Aliou, who's 16, only made it to 10:30am on the first day before he caved and ate some porridge. Mamadou did one whole day but complained the entire time.

The first day Kouye told me very specifically that they would wake me at 5:30am to come eat porridge for breakfast, so like the well-prepared American that I am, I set my alarm for 5:25 so that I would already be awake when he came to get me.  So when he knocked on the door before my alarm had gone off, I was kind of surprised.  I looked at my cell phone and it was only 2:45!  I pointed this out to Kouye and he was like, well yeah but Coumba (grandma, she's in charge of making the breakfast) doesn't know what time it is so she just makes breakfast whenever she wakes up.  And it's true.  This morning, after we had eaten, we had this exchange:

Coumba:  Maake, what time is it?
Maake:  I don't know, ask Shannon, she has a cell phone.
Shannon:  It's 3 o'clock.
Coumba:  What's 3 o'clock?
Shannon:  It's night. I don't know how to explain it. 
Maake:  It's not prayer time yet.
Coumba:  Oh ok.

It struck me as funny at the time, but also amazing.  Imagine living your life, 60 odd years, without telling time on a clock.  She knows the time of day based on the sun and the call to prayer, but at night it's true that there's basically no way to know the difference between 3am and 5am. I thought about offering to set my alarm and wake everyone up at a more reasonable time, but since I'm the only one who seems to see the situation as in need of fixing, I decided it's better to let it go and just let them wake me up for breakfast whenever Coumba says it's time.