How is your donkey?

“How are you? I am fine; how is your mother? How is your father? Good. How is your brother? Good. How is your sister? Good. How is your granny? Good. How is your donkey?…”
This is the correct way of greeting each other in many regions of Africa. Have been experiencing it when I was hiking in the Dogon Country in Mali. The Dogon Country is a real highlight in Westafrica, have never seen something like that in whole Africa: beautiful landscape, remote villages, silence, world heritage sights like mud houses built high up in the rocks, sleeping every night in small villages on top of one of the mud houses. Fantastic!
On our way up to Dogon Nadine, Maurice and me were bush camping in front of a hotel in the middle of Segou (by the way a very charming small town on the banks of the river Niger). All three of us were sleeping in the roof top tent which turned the Africans world upside down… “Maurice, do you have two wifes??” So we had lots of fun on our way pretending Nadine as his first wife and me as his second wife;) And I could rest a little bit from all the questions they usually ask: “are you travelling alone? are you married? can I have your phone number?”…
Don’t get me wrong: most of the time it is real fun and they are all very polite and if you say “no” usually they respect it. Just turn it into a joke and you can have real fun…

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