Traditionally Built
Northern Togo (a country in West Africa) 2002
Have you read any of Alexander McCall’s books in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series? The main character, Mma Ramotswe, is a Botswana woman with a “traditional build”. The traditional build was once the beauty standard in Botswana and, in the hearts of many Botswana men, it still is. (I imagine the traditional build is popular in Togo, also.)
Mma Ramotswe owns the Ladies Detective Agency and she has a helper, Grace Makutsi, who is small and slender. As I was looking at this photo, I thought of those characters in the book. Our lady in yellow has the traditional build and her neighbor in the red shirt has the slender build. Eureka!
I recommend Alexander McCall Smith’s books to you. They are light reading, and will so involve you that you will not be able to put them down. The characters behave in a moral manner that makes you long to live among them. Mr. Smith is the chairman of ethics for a medical journal and I feel as if I learn an important lesson from each book…maybe many lessons. I am always happy when I read one of his books. Try them!
The sun was nearly down when we arrived at the market. These women had been working there all day and most likely they would stay a while longer as they still have goods to sell. I was struck at how fresh their clothing looks. And despite those long hours of work, their posture is perfect. That is the result of carrying things on your head from childhood on.
What are they selling, you ask? The woman in yellow is selling a type of yam that is white. The yams are pounded and cooked to a sticky mass called fufu. It is served in a bowl of sauce often made from peanuts. The fufu resembles a large white soccer ball floating in red sauce. You stick two fingers into the fufu and hook a bunch of the stuff, then dip it into the sauce, drop it into your mouth and swallow. Chewing is not required. I’m thinking that if it is in your mouth for too long, you’d want to spit it out. I did order it once, but regretted it as soon as I took the first bite.
The woman in yellow also is selling a kind of bean and her friend sells tomatoes. The little white things in the pan in the left corner are plastic bags filled with reconstituted dried milk.