Nice to Greet You!

Of all the things I like about Dinka culture I think I like greeting the best. This could be because I believe that I have, unequivocally, mastered greeting in Dinka. I mean, I am good. Walking in the market? I’ll greet you with the three most common phrases, smile and move on. After church? I’ll shake your hand, use my greeting words, ask you about your children, smile and move on. During church across the sanctuary? I'll whip out the two hand wave. Hello there friend/stranger! It's Two-Hand-Wave-Time! After seeing you 10 minutes ago? I will shake your hand and smile use my greeting words “still healthy in your body? Luck still with you? Anything bad?”, smile and move on. And of course my favourite greetings situation: a reunion after not seeing each other for a few weeks.

It starts with a handshake, then pulls into ‘side-to-side’ hug  - which is similar to the French/Italian kiss-kiss thing, minus the kiss. All this time you are exchanging the usual greetings with enthusiasm and gusto “hello, hello, hello, are you well? How's the luck?Hello, hello, hello”. The hug stops and you smile at each other while continuing the greeting words, now you take the hands that were holding for the handshake, shake a little more and then pat the other person with joy. Rinse and Repeat (with special emphasis on the handshake-pat combo).

Last night we had a little going away gathering for our friend who is finished his job and flying the Rumbek-Coop. He’s South African, and partial to the one hand-handshake-pull-into-hug-with-single-cheek-kiss greeting. Also in attendance were kiss-kiss-Italians (I still don’t know which way to put my head first), firm-handshake-Macedonians, huggy Americans, head-side-to-side-huggy Kenyans, and a mish-mash of people whose general greeting I can’t pin down as of yet (UAE, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, North Sudan, that one person I didn’t greet at all – sorry pal!) It was a world of greeting last night, and as handshakes merged to hugs and kisses were or weren’t being given, the complex systems we set up around how we greet and are greeted were mashed up into a delicious potato salad of greeting (plus a few sort of awkward moments of "I’ll put my head to the left, oh, no, ok, you put your head to the left”, and  “oh what? Handshake into a hu – oh! And now we’re hugging!”)

This has made me realize that while I have mastered greeting in Dinka I’m not sure I’ve mastered it in my own home culture. I know the basics: first time meeting handshake (or hug if it’s someone who you feel like you’ve met before… or is that just me?), and long-time-no-see big tight hug. But apart from that I’m not sure. There is far too much grey area. I think I might stick to the Dinka way. When in doubt shake a hand. Enter a room shake all hands (including babies). We’ll see what happens when we move back to Canada, but don’t be surprised if I start for a handshake then pull you in for a side-to-side dance of handshaking, patting, and smiling maniacally.  Like I said, of all the things I like about Dinka culture I think I like greeting the best.