Mother sells coconut to support family

Samuel K. Obour Oct - 28 - 2013 , 17:35

It is quite intriguing to learn about what really pushes women to do whatever they have to do to ensure that their children do not cry for food, especially when the man of the house is unemployed.

Some women who become the breadwinners in their families usually undertake petty trading like selling iced water in order to feed their children.

This is the motive behind Madam Cynthia Amoah Ramatu’s determination to engage in the sale of coconut. A mother of seven and in her early 30s, Madam Ramatu always thinks of her children and the need to keep the family going.

Selling fresh coconut on the street is now big business for women in the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolis (STMA), and Madam Ramatu plies her trade between the rural areas bordering Sekondi/Takoradi, where she gets her supplies, and sells them at Nkroful Junction.

She started selling coconut to make some money to support her home. “I know my husband when he has money, but as it is, now he has no job and we have children to take care of so I must do something.

“I can tell you that since I started selling the coconuts, even though the profit is not enough, it provides food for our household,” she said.

A day in her life

Narrating how she goes about her business in a typical day, she said, “I prepare for the children’s school needs before the next day, to enable them to go to school, and then walk from my residence at Nkroful to Kansaworodu and board a vehicle to the villages to buy the fresh coconut.”

She said she spent the whole day buying the coconuts from farmers. She first looks for young men to pluck the coconuts, buys them and carries them to a central point in the bush. She then looks for a vehicle to convey them to the city.

Her biggest challenge is the lack of adequate funds. She said it would have been economical for her to buy enough stock, which she could sell for about a week, “but because I don’t have enough money to buy more and transport them to the city for sale, I buy what I can afford.”

She also said she committed herself to that business because “I cannot put my hands in between my thighs and leave the burden on my unemployed husband to struggle to put food on the table and take care of the family of nine – seven children and the two of us”.

To her, the situation is not too bad but she needs a little more amount to buy more coconuts and get a suitable location where she can put a table and an umbrella to sell the coconuts.

Lack of funds

She said she needed about GH¢2,000 to expand her business and also sell farm produce like cassava, plantain and oranges, which abound in the area.

Madam Ramatu displayed her skills in the Bowohomoden Forest as she held the coconut with her left hand and a machete in the right, to peel the fruit for her customers, including this reporter.

While carrying a two-year-old baby at her back and beaming with smiles, Ramatu told this reporter that the coconut business used to be lucrative, “But now, the coconut is expensive. It sells for 50Gp each on the farm but transportation and other costs affect the price at which it is sold to the final consumer”.

She explained that due to the difficulty in getting means of transport as a result of the bad nature of the roads, she had to arrange with a driver to come to the village very early to carry the goods to the city, which is very expensive.

Asked whether she had gone to any bank to apply for a loan, she said “they will not mind me because I sell fresh coconuts; that will not attract them to give me the money.”

She was grateful to her husband for constantly supporting her to get the coconuts to the roadside for the customers and “sometimes he attends to our baby while I get the coconut ready for the customers.”

Health benefits of coconut

Madam Ramatu may be selling coconuts to earn an income, but unknown to her, she is saving a lot of lives. A study on Coconut in Modern Medicine and Modern Medical Science, conducted by scientists of the Coconut Research Centre in Colorado Springs, in the United States of America (USA), has confirmed the use of coconut in treating many health problems, including abscess, asthma, baldness, bronchitis, bruises, burns, colds, constipation and cough.

It is also used in treating dysentery, fever, flu, irregular or painful menstruation, jaundice, kidney stones, lice, malnutrition, nausea, rashes, scabies, scurvy, skin infections, sore throat, swelling, syphilis, toothache, tuberculosis, tumours, typhoid, ulcers, stomach upset, body weakness and wounds.

According to the centre, people from many diverse cultures, languages, religions and races in all parts of the world consider coconut as a valuable source of food and medicine.

By Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu/Daily Graphic/Ghana

Watch Madam Ramatu peel coconut with a machete in the following video:

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