Yovo, as I knowingly didn't explain earlier, is the word that means "white person" in the local language.
I had been told well in advance that I would hear this term yelled and screamed at me on a daily basis. That was only too true during my first walk through my new village.
It started as I was saying "bonsoir" (used in Benin to mean good afternoon or good evening) to the local villagers I encountered on my walk with my host sister. A neighbor saw me and called out, "Yovo! Bonsoir, yovo!" Then he said something in Goun, which my host sister translated as "He says he's going to marry you." (It was my first of two marriage proposals that evening).
Then as we walked along, I kept hearing it over and over. "Yovo, yovo, yovo, yovo, yovo!" Some people just said it once, some turned it into a sing-song rhyme, or some just used it to talk about me. You can imagine how it feels to have the whole neighborhood screaming "white person!" as you pass. I heard it at least 100 times that evening.
That same evening, as I listened to my host sister's church choir practice, I felt a tap on my back. I turned around to see a little girl, who looked at me and simply said, "Yovo."
My host family doesn't call me a yovo to my face, but that is only because they were specifically warned not to. The Peace Corps had made sure to tell them that Americans prefer to be called by their first name rather than by yovo.
I had been told well in advance that I would hear this term yelled and screamed at me on a daily basis. That was only too true during my first walk through my new village.
It started as I was saying "bonsoir" (used in Benin to mean good afternoon or good evening) to the local villagers I encountered on my walk with my host sister. A neighbor saw me and called out, "Yovo! Bonsoir, yovo!" Then he said something in Goun, which my host sister translated as "He says he's going to marry you." (It was my first of two marriage proposals that evening).
Then as we walked along, I kept hearing it over and over. "Yovo, yovo, yovo, yovo, yovo!" Some people just said it once, some turned it into a sing-song rhyme, or some just used it to talk about me. You can imagine how it feels to have the whole neighborhood screaming "white person!" as you pass. I heard it at least 100 times that evening.
That same evening, as I listened to my host sister's church choir practice, I felt a tap on my back. I turned around to see a little girl, who looked at me and simply said, "Yovo."
My host family doesn't call me a yovo to my face, but that is only because they were specifically warned not to. The Peace Corps had made sure to tell them that Americans prefer to be called by their first name rather than by yovo.
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