Brownie discovers quality and care at Ghana Central Market

A highlight of the trip to Ghana was our brownie visit to Accra's central market place to experience all  the wonderful quality and care for fresh produce. What a hive of activity it was! Cars, people, fruit, vegetables seemingly things going in all directions and yet there was an amazing order that seemed to somehow control or manage this chaos. Underneath all the activity there's an unspoken sense of organisation - this is a place that offers serious quality produce  and means serious business.

A mass of little interwoven lines of meandering market aisles, each bordered with tiny stalls of fruit, vegetables, fish and each so beautifully cared for by the stall owner. Without fail every stall was displayed with real care and consideration. Colour coding, raised platforms everything that you would see in a department store merchandised display - absolutely gorgeous.

For cleaning teeth:

We learned the market is run by women (now that had me interested!) - the men are responsible for growing, gathering etc. but the women run the business. The market itself is even managed by women Chiefs. There's a woman chief for every type of produce eg. tomatoes or lentils and the entire senior management is women. Our trip revealed women managing each and every stall.

Besides being the most delicious array of fresh, well presented produce, the market was so friendly. Women were keen to know where we were from and welcome us to their city. The sounds of the market  were a mix of local music, hustle and bustle of people doing business and the odd amplified sermon from someone on a soap box preaching the message of the day. Sensory overload with the excitement of beautiful produce, sounds, smell of food cooking, and loads of activity to admire in presentation and care.

Exiting the market revealed a mass of people, run down buildings and even more people. I hadn't noticed all of that on the way in - for a food lover, being part of the market all was a very memorable and special experience.