Miles In Missions

E ku aaro (Good morning)
Ẹ ku ọsan (Good afternoon)
E ku ale (Good evening)
O da aaro (Good night)
E ku abo (You are welcome = greetings = hello)
O da abo (Goodbye)
Eku ise (Well done!)
E se (Thank you)

The Yoruba people will greet you at every encounter and expect to be greeted in return. It can be over-whelming trying to remember which greeting is appropriate when, but the people are gracious and will remind you when you forget. There were times this extrovert just wanted to disappear: “just let me walk! I don’t have to say ‘hello’ again! we’ve passed each other 10x’s in the last hour!” My poor, resilient, introverted husband…he hung in there.

However…now that I’m back in the states – even here in the friendly south – people are just rude. Very few say ‘hello’ even when I speak to them first. Some…