How is the morning?

He couldn’t really help it. He had been brought up on the romanticism of the Disney classics, a place where dreams did come true and beauty was established through the phenomenal. It was Andrew’s peculiarity that these images had served as the archetype for all of the major events of his life, and this, his marriage proposal would be no different.

So Doreen found herself on a spring morning in the quiet of the south side park. Sitting on a bright red checkered picnic cloth under the shade of a giant oak tree she was trying her best to conceal the staggered pounding of her heart. At any moment the question would dance into the morning air, this was the moment she had been waiting for. Five fabulous years with Andrew by her side were about to be offered as a mere prologue to a lifetime of bliss.

She took a deep breath and forced a nervous smile at him. Every pause in their conversation provided an opportunity for the big question to reveal itself. Every pause lingered over the cool grass leaving her trembling with anticipation.

Do it now. The voice inside his head rang. He gulped, slowly closed his eyes, and opened his mouth, but he found his throat unwilling to cooperated and instead choked out an incomprehensible set of syllables. He let out a loud self conscious cough in an attempt to mask his folly.

He felt a tingle surge through his entire body. His face was glowing bright red, he opened his mouth one more time, and this time the words came, “Dooreen the last five years of my life have brought me nothing but endless joy. I can’t imagine anything better than to share the rest of my life with you,” he paused to gather himself, “Doreen will you mar--“

“Hey! Hey, Andrew,” an oncoming man yelled with a wide grin. And then he began his greeting, “Are you fine? Where are the home people? How is your brother? Are you hard on work? I hope there are no troubles. You look hard on it. So, I hope you are fine?”

Modern science is still trying to explain how at this precise moment Andrew’s entire body turned into a human black hole, rapidly slumping and deflating into itself.
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Greeting takes precedence over all else.

Learning the supreme importance of greetings in The Gambia is one of the first lessons in socialization here. However, by no means does one learn the ins and outs in one day or even six months; I still struggle with the finer points of the ritual. Of note is that greetings seem to take importance over anything and everything, including (as stylized above) a marriage proposal. Kaddy once told me that you could be at your parent’s funeral crying your heart out, and it is still important to greet, as greetings are an affirmation of caring and friendship for those suffering.

When writing the above story, I wanted to share it with Daboe to ensure I wasn’t being culturally insensitive and for general readability. From the moment I asked him if he would listen to a short story, to the time the actual short story was read, we were visited by two guests both of whom required extensive greetings. In the end I think it took over an hour to have the chance to read 300 words.

Greetings are the doorway to knowledge of whether or not a person is a good human being. There seem to be a few rules governing how to make a good impression. Above all else you simply must greet in some shape or form, if you do not greet that is one of the biggest insults of all. Secondly is the amount of time that you take in greeting. If you have never met the person, it is important for a long series of questions about their home, where they come from, their name, who their parents are, etc. and often the same questions will be repeated over and over. Finally, once acquainted with each other it is important to remember their name so that the next time you greet you can no only say hello, but call out their name.

Physically there are also a few rules, including the handshake as the most basic forms of respect that can be shown. When first meeting someone or if it is someone of importance you should shake their hand. If you already know them a handshake is not as necessary, but serves as positive reinforcement of your honorable character if you take the time to habitually shake. To make the shake even more respectful you can place your hand over the heart after the handshake. Should one find themselves in a rush, too far away from the person you are greeting, or unable to reach them for whatever reason it is acceptable to clasp your own two hands together high up in the air visually representing the handshake between two people.

What kinds of things are asked in The Gambia? I can only accurately speak for the Mandinkas, but I think the following list is fairly common to all the languages here. They all begin with the universal Islamic Salaam Maleekum. Greetings include: Do you have peace? Hope there are no troubles. Where are the home people? Where do you originally come from? How is the work? Where is your father/mother? What is your name? What is your occupation?

Overall, these rules are not too difficult to follow and vigilantly practicing them can take you from a near devil like figure to a saintly man of peace. It’s a bit of a shame then that I seem to constantly fail at one or more aspects of greeting. My failings are mostly from carrying Western mentalities with me, such as time is money. Often I am rushing to get somewhere and as a result do minimalist greetings, which gets the job done, but by no means makes me a “wonderful man” within the community. Furthermore, if anyone ever begins the greeting with “tubab” instead of “hello” or “Salam Aleekum” I will never greet back. This is a bit of a tricky point because for the ones shouting tubab the word is usually not said as an insult, but I take it as a robbery of my individuality turning it into an insult. Since my lack of response to the tubab greeting further gives the impression that I do not like to greeting, digging one layer deeper into my hole. Lastly on the list of my failings at greetings is the flaw that I am horrible at remembering names, so many times I find myself unable to greet and say their name, the greeting equivalent of icing on the cake.

Living in a more urban area presents a particular challenge for greetings because there is such a wide variety of ethnic groups and nationalities here. You wade through English, French, Wolof, Pulaar, Mandinka, and a bit of Joola. When greeting in the native language of the speaker you immediately gain a lot of respect. The trick then is to decide which ethnic group the person belongs to and greet accordingly. After some time in The Gambia you gain the ability to take an educated guess at ethnic groups, and therefore greet in the proper language. It’s one aspect of my time here I have been working on a lot in recent months, and I can now get by with greeting in all of the above languages.

I’m still not exactly sure who is supposed to begin the greeting process, but as a foreigner I think Gambians expect you to begin the conversation meaning that your guess at their ethnic group is even more important. When someone else does begin the greeting it is always a bit of a relief since I simply have to listen to the language that they choose.

One of the most frustrating things is trying to greet in a native language and the person angrily says back, “I can speak English. Why don’t you greet me in English?” Admittedly this rarely happens and it throws you off guard because more often than not the response is, “Oh my god, this tubab can speak (_fill_in_language_here_).”

Finally as a footnote, one area where it is completely acceptable to cut greetings short is cell phone conversations. It’s an aspect of life that has adopted the Western mentality that time is money, and when you excessively greet you take up minutes, and you take up credit, meaning you take up money. Wasting credit can quickly add up to a life with one fewer bags of rice, or kilo of potatoes, etc.

To sum it all up, I think it’s important reiterate the overall importance of greeting. When we first started language training, greetings were the first thing we learned and continually practiced. I can vividly remember my language trainer saying, “Today we will work on nothing but greetings, greetings, greetings, greetings. Why? Because they are the most important thing you can know here. Let’s begin.”
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New photos are up on my Flickr account.