Niamtougou Travel Guide

 grets Says:   It never ceased to amaze me how ingenuititive (I think I might just have made that word up) the local people are. I have said it several times: waste not want not. These oil lamps are fashioned from discarded food cans. Much cheaper than making them from ‘new’ metal and... 

 grets Says:   This is probably a lot healthier than the western counterpart, as these natural toothbrushes are disposable and biodegradable. I didn’t actually try them, but did try some similar ones in Mali some years ago and they worked a treat! It just shows that you can still have... 

 grets Says:   These sticks are also added to hot water and extracted juice is drunk as a treatment for anemia. 

 grets Says:   This little bundle of roots is added to hot water to make a drink which doesn’t taste unlike mint tea. It has lots of curative properties so it’s said to be very good for you. 

 grets Says:   As I have explained on another one of my Togo pages, the baobab tree is a useful shrub. Here you can see a loofah made from the fibres of the trunk of the baobab tree. 

 grets Says:  This was one of the stranger items we came across in the market: stones rich in calcium which pregnant women buy and eat! Each to their own I suppose, and I have heard some women have strange cravings during pregnancy! 

 grets Says:   I saw these little conical things for sale in several stalls in the market. They are made from peanuts which are ground, shaped and then fried. I bought a bag-full to try and they were very nice indeed. Quite hard to bite into, and really quite spicy! 

 grets Says:   When making millet or sorghum beer, a pulp is remaining after the beer has been filtered through a fine mesh. This pulp is dried and made into patties and sold in the market for fuel. It is known as pelebe. 

 grets Says:   Shea butter has a sizeable quantity of unsaponifiable fats, several vitamins and other active elements, as well as soothing, moisturising and protecting properties. Shea butter also helps cell regeneration and capillary circulation which in turn speeds up the healing of... 

 grets Says:   Also known as the manioc, cassava is grown for its large, starch-filled root. It is extensively cultivated as an annual crop throughout Africa, and in every village you can see the ladies pounding the cassava to make fufu – the staple carbohydrate of West Africa. There are... 

 grets Says:   Firewood is scarce in this arid region and comparatively expensive. Many people of course cook over charcoal, as this tends to be cheaper than wood. I reckon this wood had travelled some distance to get here, as we saw no forests anywhere near Niamtougou. I wonder how... 

 grets Says:  These enormous brimmed hats are peculiar to this area and help protect the market traders against the fierce sun. Not only does it shade their face and eyes, unlike other, smaller hats, it also shields their arms.