Cape Coast things

The kids in Cape Coast often sing a song when we walk by that I haven't heard in other parts of Ghana. It's either funny or annoying, depending on my mood. It goes to a chanting rhythm that reminds me of the songs kids sing during hand-clapping games:

"O-bro-ni,
how are you?
I'm fine!
Thank you!
And you?"

There's a woman who owns a grocery kiosk down the street from our guesthouse. I don't know her name, but every time we go there to buy things she says "welcome, my friend!" to me and chats with me a bit. The first time this happened we had a perplexing, unsuccessful conversation all in Fante (this was the day before I blogged about how hard Fante is). The second time was all in English. Yesterday was in both Fante and English, and it was definitely the most successful conversation yet, although it mostly consisted of her explaining things to me. As we walked back to the hotel, two of the many neighborhood kids walked along with us. Like all kids in Cape Coast, one of the boys asked us "How are you?" and I replied "I'm fine. Ete sen?" (which is "How are you" in both Twi and Fante). The boy replied "bawkaaw" (which literally means "soft" and is used kind of like "cool" in English; the spelling is actually off because of the English alphabet). He then whispered to his friend "Aw ka Fante!" which means "She speaks Fante!" That was a great moment!

Today I met with a professor of Fante at the University of Cape Coast. When I first saw him, yesterday, to make the appointment, he was rather frightening -- I was waiting in the hallway, and he was arguing with someone on the phone. The person had never heard of his last name and had asked him to spell it, and he got mad and criticized them for not knowing the famous Ghanaian who shared his name and who had done this and that and the other, saying "Well, you should go back and read your history!" But he turned out to be a very kind, interesting, and helpful man. We met for about 2 hours, and once he understood better what I was interested in (this took about an hour, unfortunately), I learned a lot of interesting things about Fante culture (the details of phonology will have to wait until my meetings at Winneba, in a week and a half).

So, on a different note, I have a new favorite AIDS-awareness slogan, which I've seen on bumperstickers on many taxis in Cape Coast. The slogan is "Drive Protected: If it's not on, it's not in!" with a simple outline of a car inside a condom. The analogy of driving and sex is a bit of a strange stretch, but I like the phrase! There's also a billboard on the outskirts of town, with a painting of a (white!) policeman holding a huge shield in his left hand an a ridiculously large condom in his right hand, with the slogan: "Prevent AIDS: Protect yourself and your community!"