Life as a 'Yovo'

Apparently I caught up on sleep my second night, because I slept for 14 hours! Waking up to those pesky roosters! There are some roosters in our neck of the woods, that just like run around the streets, and do their cock-a-doodle-doo’s in the morning! I think one of them is going through puberty though...haha! It keeps attempting to make the sound, and ends up failing! Poor rooster...

Anyway, we finally got to unpacking and making our house feel homey. We finally had settled in and decided to go for a walk around our area. We had quickly learnt the name for white person in Benin, it’s “Yovo”! Every time we would pass a child or a group of children they would point and be like Yovo! Yovo! They also apparently have been taught a little song (since every child was singing it repeatedly haha!) It goes a little like this:

“Yovo, Yovo, bonjour, comment vas-tu? Je vas bien, merci!”

Which translates into, White person, White person, hello, how are you, I’m doing well, thank you.....?!?! Not too sure what that song means, but it’s hilarious! The kids like us though, and people are generally nice, saying “Hi, how are you?” when we pass by and such. So we don’t feel like total outsiders, but I don’t think the area we are in, they are totally used to white people, so it will just take a lot of walking around and getting to know people, and we will warm up to them, so that we can be a part of their culture! Stoked for that time!

I also think word has spread of where the ‘Yovo’s’ live...hahah! When we were on our way back from walking, this kid passed by us and then turned around and then like directed us to our house... interesting...haha!