on just saying hello

In keeping with my promise (warning?) that I will use this space to process my new Nigerian consciousness, today I need to revisit culture shock. Actually, it's less "shock" and more "longing."

I find myself grieving the loss of Nigerian culture, and while that is about as blanket as a blanket statement can get, it's tough for me to be specific. This is mostly because I miss everything.

However, I think I've finally pinpointed what I miss most, and it's so small and insignificant, but so profound to me. I hope in explaining it, it can be profound to you, too.

I miss the greetings most.

The greeting phenomenon was my very first cultural lesson in Nigeria, and consequently, one of my very first blog posts. You can read about it here.

The basic summary is that in Nigeria, you greet everyone: friends, family, flatmates, classmates, supervisors, security guards, fruit sellers in the market, people younger than you, and most assuredly people older than you. You may very well greet the same person several times a day, but you must greet them every time you see them.

It requires effort and courtesy. You must be aware of the time of day to alter your greeting from "Good morning" to "Good afternoon." And you ought to have an inclination of the age of the person you are greeting, so as to show deference as applicable: "Good morning" to a child, and "Good morning, sir" to a male elder ("Good morning, ma" to a female elder; "ma" means "ma'am").

I was never great at estimating ages. A dear friend had to remind me once not to call young women "ma" because I was most likely their elder. That was difficult for me - in my efforts to not offend these gracious people, I just called everyone "ma" or "sir"!

Having learned the greeting culture so thoroughly and becoming so adapted to it, you can imagine how difficult it was for me to arrive back in the States, where it is permissible to pass someone in the hallway, on the sidewalk, etc. and not greet them. Or worse: saying good morning to someone, then passing them just a few minutes later and ignoring them completely because after all, you've already said good morning! See the difference?!

And this is not to say that Americans are hateful people, because we are products of our culture and that's the culture we live in. But in Nigeria, I always felt that the culture reinforced the concept that everyone you meet, even a stranger, matters.

I've probably had too much time to unpack the whole concept, but to me, greeting says this:

You are another human sharing the space I occupy on this earth, which makes you important. When I greet you, I show that I see you. I acknowledge your presence as I respect that I am part of your space, too. Greeting you is my small-small way of recognizing that I need you as you need me, and as we breathe the same air, we appreciate each other.

Okay, so that's very dramatic and exaggerated, but that's the concept: Everybody matters. The woman pushing her cart through the aisles at the store matters. The important-looking businessman walking down the street matters. The small child on the corner matters. (And those are just images I recall from Nigeria.)

Thus, I greet everyone here. I greet the teenager at the Target checkout and I delight when he raises his eyebrows, surprised, and says, "Well good afternoon to you, too!" I repeat my greeting when the waitress does not acknowledge it and cringe a little when she finally responds with "Yeah, okay, hello."

So when I say things like "Good morning, how are you?" or "How was your night?" or even "Can I help?" it's just my way of reminding you that you matter.