My adoring public

Toubab. Pomoi. Obroni. Yovo. White Man. I have quite the collection of different names following me around these days. Every local language has a different word for "white person" (although in Sierra Leone and Liberia, people usually just say "White man" in English), and wandering around West Africa, you hear these words a lot.

You hear the cries of "white man" in a few ways. Often times, especially from children, people passing will look at you and chirp "White man, how are you?". Rarely are they interested in an answer, and indeed, when I ask it back, I often get the response "How are you too!". Nonetheless, this one's actually reasonably pleasant.

Equally common are people trying to get your attention. A Ghanaian fruit seller might yell "Obroni! You buy bananas!" as I trundle on by. A lot of local languages (especially those of the Fulani) regularly refer to people by their attributes. For example, a short person might commonly be addressed as something like "Shorty" in most social interactions, so it's not a huge surprise that I will forever be whitey. Apparently, it takes a surprising while for this to drop. A friend of mine lived with a Ewe family in Togo for several months, and they referred to her only as "Yovo" until the very last couple of weeks.

In small places where white people rarely venture, you also often hear "white man" as a straight-up exlamation of surprise, as people gape at this strange hairy fellow trundling down the road, and call to their friends to come see.

In many ways the most common one, though, is the simple statement of my whiteness. Lest I be in danger of forgetting what my skin colour is, I get reminded by kindly passers-by every couple minutes in many places, especially in Ghana. It's not at all clear what response is called for when someone looks at you and flatly states "obroni". Sometimes, if I'm feeling cheeky, I reply with the local word for "black person" (here, it's "obibini") which usually unleashes a giggle or two from the obroni-ist. Sometimes, I just say "true!". Most of the time, I don't really respond, if only because that would sometimes have me continually chattering as I walk down a crowded street.

It's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. I doubt that any of us could imagine pointing and yelling "black man!" at an African walking down a Canadian street. You wouldn't get the greatest reception, to say the least. Yet here, most of the time, it doesn't really bother me.

I say "most of the time", because you certainly do get a fair bit of sneering or vaguely hostile calls. It's always tricky territory to read too much into tone when listening to a foreign language, but it's usually reasonably clear when you're the butt of a joke or a snide comment. Still, given the long history of white people bearing highly dubious gifts in this part of the world, I'm perfectly willing to take the odd verbal jab.

The funny thing is, the amount of calling-out doesn't seem to have any real relationship to how many white people come by a given spot. In Ghana, which is full of white people, it's constant. In Liberia, which gets very few, it's rather rare. It changes from village to village and region to region - when I went out East in Ghana, the streets were creepily silent.

Finally, and perhaps most amusingly, there is the White Person Song. All children know the white man song. The tune is generally confined to one country or region, but within that region it's remarkably consistent.

In Ghana and (so I'm told) Togo, it runs like this (imagine a sing-song here)

Ob-ro-NI, how-are-YOU, I-am-FINE, whatisyourname?

or, the French version (with slightly lower information content)

Yo-VO, bon-JOUR, comment-ca-VA?, ca-VA-bien!

Friends of mine swear that they've heard parents teaching the White Person Song to their children, and correcting them when they get the tune wrong. That would certainly explain it's amazing consistency from village to village to village. Ah, yet another topic I would love to research....

In any case, the day is wandering on, and I just got a drive-by obroni-ing as I sit in the Cybercafe. I think it's time to descend into the market for my daily dose of catcalls, so, as always,
Peace