Day 2 – Trekking Tek Junction Market

For many of us living in the United States, going grocery shopping is a tedious task – one that involves walking numerous aisles filled with way too many items. In Kumasi, going grocery shopping is just as tedious a task but I would say even more complicated. Haggling is a common way of going about buying food from the market, and competition is fierce among the different shops. This afternoon, on a quest to buy food items for our stay in Ghana, the ADE team went to Tek Junction market. Tek Junction market is a central shopping location located right outside KNUST. It is hard to miss – there are all sorts of little stalls and shops clustered under colorful umbrellas and shades. Shopkeepers will aggressively sell their items by calling you to their stall and try to give you a better deal than the stall next door. Dr. George Obeng (Director of TCC and friend of Ben) drove us to Tek Junction and helped us shop around the market. He was so pleasant and patient with us!

(Pictured above left to right: ShopkeeperJ, Isabelle Byusa, Alison Shin, Dr. George Obeng, Rainey Jernigan, Nikhil Gupta)

KNUST campus has a commercial center with a pharmacy, food shops, ATM machines etc. The picture above was taken outside one of the shop!

Tek Junction Market 

Tomorrow morning, we are setting off to Adumkrom and PKK – two small villages in Kumasi. We will be spending the night there and meeting with gari producers in those villages. Our goal for the visit is to gain as much solid data about gari producers as we can.  We will be going back next weekend and also bring our grater with us for live demonstrations. Some of the potential questions we will be asking to the gari producers on our trip are:

1. How much would you be willing to pay for a grater?

2. If you bought this grater, would you grate cassava for yourself or grate for others as a source of income?

3. Do you have other jobs besides cassava grating? If yes, how much time do you spend on cassava grating compared to your other jobs?

4, What would you do with the increased income of owning a grater?  

5. How much money do you make from the sale of gari?

6. What do you do with the money that you make from your business?  Do you put money back in business or other?

7. Why would you buy a grater? Why would you not buy a grater?

8. What features of the grater are important in the final quality of the gari?

9. How many people do you know who are gari producers? How likely would they be to purchase a grater?

10. Have you seen anything like our grater before?

11. Are you a part of an association?

12. How long does the whole grating and pressing process take?

Looking forward to Day 3! Stay tuned for another blog post after our village trip J