Jan
13
Filed Under (Beninese culture) by Rob on 13-01-2008

Beninese children have a unique way of greeting Western visitors. They ALL seem to know this cheery – but somewhat nauseating – chant, which goes:

“Yovo, yovo, bonsoir. Ca va bien, merci.”

These days, I just join in and sing along merrily, like I haven’t heard it about 3,000 times before! They mean well, and – after all – it’s better than being ignored!!! Have YOU been “Yovo’d”??? Do you like it? Leave us a comment…



Comments:
1 Comment posted on "Yovo Yovo bonsoir!"
Phil on June 17th, 2008 at 1:41 pm #

I used to live in Burkina faso. The chant there isn’t as elaborate.. It’s just Nassara (yovo) said in an elongated very loud way.. Well, almost every morning I would leave home for work and the children not too far from my house would scream it in hordes, sometimes 5-10 kids scremaing this together. Some mornings I thought it was cute and it made me cheery. Some mornings, It really upset me and I couldn’t get over the fact that they couldn’t get over the fact that I was white.. So I kinda like your description “cheery but nauseating”..