Greeting

During our formation in Los Angeles we heard plenty about culture.  We were given a general idea of what the culture in Cameroon might be like and ways to see the gifts within all cultures.  I knew it would be a learning experience the entire three years of our mission.  After being here for three months I thought I might have the slightest insight of what makes up life here.  We discovered quickly that greeting people you pass is very important.  From observing people greet us we learned you say good morning/afternoon/evening and ask how they are.  Everyone that we meet with the children greet our kids first and ask them how they are.  The automatic response is “fine.”  Our kids have learned to offer a handshake and answer with “fine.”  We thought Patrick had this concept down until he started running away from people the past few days.  We were a little embarrassed when he ran away from greeting the Bishop.  Thankfully the Bishop is a wise man and knew Patrick was just being a two year old.

Maura and I thought we were doing well with our greeting of people and conversation starters.  We found after talking with a Cameroonian for some time neither of us would know each others names.  I find it more personal to know a person’s name so I try to be sure to ask early in the conversation.  Then it occurred to me that maybe there is a reason people do not disclose their names while talking to them.  An opportunity came up for me to ask a Cameroonian why they do not share their names when talking with me.  The response was that it is rude to talk about yourself and you would not want to put a person in that position by asking their name.  All right, now I know, to find out people’s names you have to go about it in a roundabout way.  I have yet to master the roundabout way of figuring out names but it will be fun to figure how. 

After discovering I have been asking people their names improperly I decided I better see if my greet was correct.  We were talking with my neighbors and they asked if in the U.S. we would greet people walking by.  I explained my thoughts on the matter and asked how I should greet people here.  To my surprise I learned I was to ask someone how they were only if I knew them well.  I would have to know them well in the event they needed me to help them.  I interpreted that as when you ask someone how they are, it is meant to be genuine with the possibility of offering assistance if needed.  A younger person should never ask someone older how he/she is because the younger person is not able to offer assistance.  Asking this assumes the older person is not able to care for him/herself and it is an insult.  Looks like I better work on my greeting so I do  not offend anyone. 

The greatest gift of this culture is that people are very understanding of the guest.  The final words of our neighbor was that people know we are trying to be friendly and appreciate us acknowledging them.  This does explain why I am mentally exhausted each night from having to think about just how to greet someone.  I find discovering these little or possibly big nuisances as exciting and it is what makes it so fun to live in another culture.

Peace-

Ryan

With the neighbors