Greetings and Salutations

It has recently occurred to me that I post an awful lot of what I do and not so much about the Senegalese culture that I am struggling to learn. As things become more normal for me here I tend not to notice them anymore, which I suppose is a good sign, but then they never come up.

So instead of talking about the amazing chinese restaurant Chris found in Dakar last night (its hard to get anything other than Senegalese food of hamburgers here, so this is a big deal), I will talk a little about greetings. Greetings in Senegal are a big deal. Everyone greets everyone, all the time. Every time you see someone, you start of on this long list of greetings, regardless of whether you just saw them at the market a few hours ago. The other day I walked out of my house and told the maid I was going to the market and she yelled at me for not properly greeting her. She was totally right, it was rude of me not to. Greetings depend somewhat on who you are greeting, but there is a basic fomat that you run through.

Person A: Asalaa malekum (Arabic for I greet you all in peace)
Person B: Malekum Salaam (ditto)
A: How are you?
B: I am here.
A: How is the family?
B: They are there.
A: How is the cold? (recently as it has been getting down to 60 here)
B: It is cold.
A: How is everything?
B: Its going.
A: Praise be to God.

Then you reverse the greetings. There are hundreds of variations of course and everyday I run into a new greeting that I dont know how to answer. When I get home today from Dakar everyone will ask how Dakar is and how my weekend was. Then they will ask what presents I brought them and I will pretend not to understand.