Every Tuesday Kute becomes ‘alive’ so to say. The stalls are filled, the piles are stacked, and the venders are out. People come in from all over (Togo included) to sell their itemor items. Laying out a tarp on the ground and grouping the items in groups of 4 to 5 to sell. Stacking everything like it is their prized possession in hopes of selling it all. Children, women, and men are all walking around with various trays on top of their heads, selling anything from grilled meat, pure water, beads, to various insecticides, hard boiled eggs, pots and pans, and dried fish (so discussing). The colors are out, the smells are filling the air, and the vehicles are becoming too overloaded that I fear for the day when they are too top heavy. Different chop (Ghana’s version of fast food) bars are open selling, fried rice, groundnut soup with fufu, or banku, various stews and other typical Ghanaian foods. Women are frying anything that can be fried and the market day starts.

small boy carrying plantain

Maiz

I make my way from lady to lady greeting them along the way, practicing my Ewe, using a bit of French, but mostly English. They all ask what I’m looking for, and try to point me in the right direction… but mostly I’m trying to absorb the colors, the smells, the action of a market day in Ghana. I’m still so fascinated by it all.

dried fish... yummm

I usually start with buying pineapple, as they are the heaviest and should be the first to go into the bag. On my first market day I tried to buy just one pineapple… but you can’t do just that at my market… so 4 pineapples for one Ghana Cedi (about 80 cents) went into the bag… what’s the saying, “a pineapple a day, keeps the doctors away?” I sure hope so. I made my way to the cabbage lady (more like ladies as they all try to show me that they have the best cabbage for me…. I never know who to buy form). And so it goes on… buying some spiced grilled tofu, or maybe a fried donut ball and some pure water (water being sold in a bag) and continuing to shop around.

Sea Salt

In Ghana you can’t smell anything (its considered bad juju)… so trying to buy a ripe pineapple, or deciphering between the spices is rather challenging… most of the market ladies don’t know the English word for the spices sold in Ghana, and many of the “so called spices” are ground up fish powder… yuck!

Gari (made from Cassava)