Even the Goats Call Me Yovo

It's a bizarre thing, being a celebrity. Seeing as I'm the most fascinating thing to hit Lokossa since Michael Jackson, I'm getting to know all about it. So far as I have seen, there's only one other white person in the city, and she's off in Porto Novo right now doing a Peace Corps summer camp for girls right now. Which makes me the only one. Which at least helps to understand why literally everyone I see in the street, toddlers, kids, teenagers, women, men, and old people scream, YOVO YOVO YOVO when I walk by. I am incredibly exciting like that. (Yovo is the Fon word for white.) There is a sing-song chant that the kids shout when they see me, that goes 'Yovo, Yovo, Bon soir! Ca va bien; merci!' to which I sometimes reply, 'Beninois, Beninois, Bon soir! yada yada' or, better yet, 'Mewi, mewi; Bon soir!' as mewi is the Fon word for black; and this absolutely cracks people up.

Most of the time, the yovo-ing doesn't bother me, as it doesn't carry any of the sexual undertones of 'chela', which is the Nicaraguan word for white girl. It is really just a result of the novelty. Today, I was walking home from the orphanage and saw a bunch of white people on motos going through town and I was so excited that they might be American or speak English that I almost screamed Yovo to get their attention!! Sometimes, however, I get fed up with the staring and the constant yovo calls. It's not culturally inappropriate to stare here, like it is in the States, so people just keep on looking at you long after you want them to go the hell away. A little girl who lives next to the NGO office where I work in the afternoons comes in almost every day just to stare at me while I work! She just comes in and watches me for 20 minutes at a time, goes back to her house, and then comes back to the office to stare some more! She doesn't bother me, but I've been to two church services so far during which the majority of the people in looking-distance decided to eschew prayer in order to better observe my skin.

I am not only a fascination, though; I am also terrifying. Last week, I was sitting out in front of the office when I noticed that a whole family of kids (5 or 6 of them, ranging from babies to age 9 or 10) were hiding behind the fence and watching me!! I eventually convinced the bigger ones to come over and 'me saluer'-- greet me-- at which point i explained that i was actually human, and it was only my skin that was different. Then, I think having seen these other kids cross the street (dirt path) to talk to me, a whole posse of other kids ran down the street screaming to introduce themselves! I spend the vast majority of my time talking to people under age 15, that is for sure.