Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, are you still living?
In Ecuador, and most countries where Spanish is spoken, people greet each other routinely with buenas dias, buenas tardas, and buenos noches. This simply means good morning, good afternoon, and good night. It is proper to greet everyone you meet in this way and to repeat the greeting as a goodbye when you leave. The Kichwa also have three greetings, depending on the time of day, that follow this traditional Spanish greeting and goodbye. In Kichwa you would say alli puncha, alli chishi, alli tuta. Alli puncha is good morning. The other two greetings are Kichwa for good afternoon and good evening.
To the English speaker this makes perfect sense and as MedWater is an English first language organization we quickly opted for the Kichwa greeting instead of the Spanish greetings when addressing our Kichwa friends. But as is always the case, language isn’t that simple. The Kichwa equivalents to the traditonal Spanish greetings don’t express the Kichwa context of relation to their social responsibility. Actually there can be different contexts but the one that came up in my hearing was given by Jamie Tapuy. Jamie said that they don’t use alli puncha, alli chishi, alli tuta with each other. They say Kawsangichu. Kawsangichu translated through Spanish to English means, Are you still living? Jamie put it in the context of community which is, Are you still living to help? or Are you still living to make our lives better? The positive answer to this greeting/question is Kawsanimi, I am still living to help. That moves a simple greeting to a serious understanding of relation.
Good morning! Are you still living?
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