A few phrases & cultural essentials
Phrases
‘Dumela’ literally means ‘I see you’ and is the most common greeting in Botswana. Usually as ‘Dumela mma’ for a woman and ‘dumela rra’ for a man, it becomes ‘Dumelang’ if addressing a group.‘O tsogile’ for ‘How are you?’ which means ‘How have you woken up?’. You can reply with ‘Ke tsogile (sentle)’, ‘I’m good’ or in full ‘I’ve woken up good’.‘Ke lebogile’ stands for ‘Thank you’.
However, a greeting in Setswana will make people smile and open up.
Both in Botswana as in Namibia English is very widely spoken. More so it is the official language and the educational system is largely in English. So that is easy enough.
Greeting people
One rule: always greet first! In these lands it is vitally important to greet before…anything else. Don’t ask for directions without it, don’t buy bread without it, basically don’t do anything before having greeted the people you’re addressing. It is actually, when you get used to, beautiful and we personally feel we hurried, fast & furious Western Europeans might learn a little lesson here 😉
Handshakes & physical contact
Care to shake hands the ‘proper way’? Have a look.
🤝
Further than that? Be mindful, Motswana and Namibians aren’t all that touchy-feely, our 2 or 3 kisses on the cheek or a sturdy hug where our upper bodies actually touch? Maybe not here. Kissing is just a ‘no no’ and even hugging only done with those you know for a bit and then still keeping it distant enough, touching shoulders yes, full upper bodies no.
Yet don’t be afraid, Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. At all, Motswana and Namibians are really tolerant and know very well your average tourist might not know all these. After all, a mistake here and there, might even make contact fun and spontaneous.