Lingala dictionary · browse all
mai
MA-i
water
French: eau
Pesa ngai mai ya komela.
Give me drinking water.
Donne-moi de l'eau à boire.
Water — the first thing offered to a guest who arrives. Mai is water, and offering it is the oldest gesture of welcome there is. A guest who arrives tired and dusty is given water before anything else. The Congo River — Ebale, the great water that names the country itself — is never far from the Congolese sense of who they are.
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