Habari ghani?

As you will see in every blog about Tanzania and language, greetings are the bedrock of interactions with people, whether or not you know them. Now that I am beginning to understand some basic variations, I can see why it is that my Tanzanian friends always seem to have something they need to talk to someone about when they run into them randomly on the street or elsewhere. Their substantial and intimate conversation is a minute-and-a-half-long game of finding one more way than the other of asking, "How are you?"
My best attempt at translating a recent conversation:
"What's the news this afternoon?" (Habari za mchana?)
"Good! What's up?" (Nzuri! Mambo vipi?)
"I'm cool. Greetings." (Poa. Salaama.)
"Salaama."
... actually, now I am forgetting how many they used, but it just kept going and going, as though they were simply demonstrating for me the whole first page of a visitor's guide to Tanzania titled "Greetings". For me, they do the same in English. "Hello! How are you doing this morning? What's up? How is it?" -- this said to me last night by a really cute kid who seemed to be showing off to his friends.

So, Kiswahili conversation of the day:
"Habari gani?" (What's the news?)
"Nzuri sana." (Very good.)

Pronunciation guide:
/a/ is said as in "hahaha!"
/i/ is said as in "ski"
/u/ is said as in "tune"
and when a word starts with an "n", don't be shy about making a whole syllable out of the letter.

Also, if you practice this with someone, do not feel compelled to make eye contact. The fact that I make eye contact with *everyone* gets me a lot of attention. It is not impolite to look at everything but your conversation partner in Tanzania... either that, or I have found a culture-wide case of ADHD that Novartis (maker of Ritalin) may be interested in.