1.08.2018

I Miss Shikamoo

Greeting is an important part of the culture in Tanzania. It's normal to greet someone at least 3 different ways, 'good morning', 'how did you wake up', 'how is your family'. That is probably the bare minimum of morning greetings. All the languages that I know in Tanzania have special greetings for people based on whether they are men or women and whether they are older or younger than you.

In Tanzania, whenever I greet someone older than me I say 'shikamoo' to which the response is 'marhaba'. Sometimes it was difficult to tell if someone was older than me. If I misgauged the age and didn't say 'shikamoo' I would often receive a highly emphasized 'MARHABA'.

I don't miss the stress of the age-guessing game.

I do, however, miss having a natural way of telling someone 'I respect you because you are older than me'.

I didn't expect to miss that. I find myself wanting to have an opening greeting of respect when I meet someone who is clearly older than me. I have, on multiple occasions, awkwardly not greeted someone when I should have because I couldn't figure out how to start without 'shikamoo'.

The truth of the matter is, all things being equal, someone who is 5 years older than me knows more than me. Their life experience has value. Someone 40 years older than me has that much more life experience. I miss being able to convey in a single word that I respect someone's life experience.

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