How to Bid Farewell to a Visitor, Senegal Style

What do you do at the end of an evening with visitors?  If you're like most people, you walk them to the door, wait while they put their shoes on (if you're Asian or in Canada!), say good-bye, and close the door once they've walked out to their car.  Before we moved to Senegal, this was our routine as well, and it's taken us some time to get used to N. American ways once again since arriving here in May.  Now that we've acculturated to life there, some customs we grew up with seem a little bit impersonal.

In Senegal, the ritual of bidding a visitor farewell carries great importance.  Here's a few lessons we've learned over the years that have helped us build bridges with nationals who come to our home:

1. When a friend declares, "I should get going now," always insist that they stay a bit longer.  It doesn't matter if it's 11 PM and they've been there all day and you've been dying to go to bed.  The first and even second time someone expresses their wishes to leave, "Sit!  Don't go, friend!" is the only acceptable response.  Some hosts may even add, "Won't you stay the night?" as a courtesy!
2. Once you've prevailed upon your visitor to stay a bit longer, you are free to let them take their leave.  But you can't just walk them to the door.  Unless some great impediment exists (you're dealthly ill with malaria, you're home alone with a napping baby, to name a couple), you need to walk them part of the way home (or to the bus stop or the nearest main thoroughfare to catch a taxi).  Thankfully, Senegal is very safe, so that I've been known to walk a female guest down the street at night, in the dark (street lamps are rare) with no fear of thieves or thugs.  It's wonderful!
3. Wait for your guest to excuse you before heading home.  The onus is on him to tell you "You can stop here."  Until he does, keep walking, baby!  Once, Dan walked one of his students, David, all the way home because he didn't hear this phrase.  When I later talked to David, he explained, "I didn't want to cut him off or offend him, since we were in the middle of a conversation!"

Here, Dan is "gunge"-ing our dear friend, Pastor Alainde. 
Isabella loves tagging along, and making new friends along the way,
especially if they have a tricycle for her to hop on for a quick ride!

The entire ritual I just described is called "gunge" (pronounced GOON-gay).  Obviously, the fact that they have a special term for it demonstrates how central it is to the culture.  A Senegalese friend eager to learn English once asked me, "How do you say 'gunge' in English?"  I had to laugh!  "We don't have that term, because we don't 'gunge' our guests."  He could hardly believe it!  Over the years, we've learned to appreciate the warmth and hospitality of our host culture, and although we don't criticize N. American culture for doing things differently, we certainly do miss some of these traditions that have become second nature to us.