Greetings

It's hard to overstate how important greetings are in Mali.  When passing someone on the street in Bamako a "Bonjour, ca va" will suffice.  But if you see an acquaintance you must inquire about how they slept (early in the day at least), their family, and perhaps their children, parents, and siblings.  All of this is reciprocated and is in Bambara, the predominant regional language.

In rural Mali greetings are even more important, and in Dogon Country, where I recently spent 6 days, I saw this up close.  For example, in these villages which are typically about 300 people, the women may walk up to 500 meters through steep and rocky terrain to get 3 gallons of water which they carry on their head in a pot.  They've likely made this same trip every day since they could walk.  But everyone they see is greeted for about 5 seconds with a chorus of what sounds like "say-oh" being repeated back and forth about 10 times.  As we were walking with our guide, Oumar, he would also greet most people -- whether it be someone farming on the side of the path, or someone driving by on their motorbike (very rare).  But in that case the motorbike stopped, they greeted each other, and the rider continued.