Greetings along the path

During my first few years in Musoma, it often bothered me that I needed to greet everyone I passed when I was running.  There are certain situations where it's okay not to greet people, such as if you are engrossed in a conversation with someone who is traveling along with you and you don't know the person you are passing.  But in general, greeting folks is the socially correct thing to do around here.  I found it irritating that I couldn't just shut my mind off and go exercise, but I had to acknowledge total strangers who just happened to be going along the same trail I was.

On our most recent trip to North America, during my first couple weeks there I found it very liberating to just trot along listening to music on my iPod and ignoring everyone, as they also ignored me.  But then the thrill of silence and being ignored wore off, and I found myself doing the "runner's nod" to other runners or people listening to music, and verbally greeting walkers (people walking have a wee bit more time to process and reply than runners).

Upon returning to Musoma, I resumed my usual practice of saying (in Swahili) "Good morning" or "How are you?" to people.  There aren't too many greetings one gives or receives to strangers when both parties are in transit and the questions and replies are standard.  Sometimes somebody (not me, I'm not that creative when exercising!) will mix it up with a "How is your exericise?" or "How did you wake up?"  Since the answers are all still the same ("Good!"), it doesn't take too much brain power.  It's easy, it's friendly, and I don't really think about it much one way or the other.

However, I was recently struck speechless when I was jogging along on a weekday morning and a man, a total stranger, walking along the path in the opposite direction gave me with a big smile and greeted me with, "Let's praise Jesus Christ!"  I had already begun to say "good", when I realized what he'd said.  There was a moment of silence, during which we passed each other, and then I turned around and called after him, "Amen!"