Shea Butter Ghana Style

Apparently, Ghana is the number one in exporter of Shea butter around the world. Who knew, right? It comes from the Northern region. The Shea butter you buy here is different than the kind in the US. Here it’s very white and completely pure. So we told Dr. Anderson that we wanted to buy some, and he asked the driver if he knew anyone in this village who makes it.  The driver knew a police officer, who knew someone, who lead us deep into this village to a older lady’s house. The walk to the lady’s house was shady – it kind of felt like we were going after drugs. Anyways, the lady makes the Shea butter at her house and apparently has the best product.  We asked her to buy some, and buy some we did. For the four of us who wanted Shea butter, we bought her entire stock for 35 Ghana cedis. This is about 18 US dollars.  The bowl was bigger than we expected – it filled a 3-gallon bucket and a gallon bag. So, I got about a gallon of Shea butter for $4.50 US. Talk about a deal. I have been using it the last few days and I love it! It works so much better than lotion and its completely pure. We, also, felt like we were helping the lady out financially, since most families live on only 150 Ghana cedis annually.