Ghana Life: Not All Mature Women Are Plus Size

Ghana, like other African countries, has a high proportion of plus-size women, especially those over thirty, but there is a minority of women who remain short and slender throughout life. One such young woman, Akosua Akomwa, trained as a welder at the Kumasi Technical Institute, a vocational school established in Kumasi with the help of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This little person pioneered a movement to attract more young women to the engineering trades. Akosua ran a successful workshop for several years, but her aunt Rose led a very different career.

A few years ago, Aunt Rose had been arrested on arrival in England and charged with trying to import cocaine. It is unclear if she knowingly committed this crime or if she was an innocent victim of drug traffickers, but after serving her prison sentence she agreed to help the British authorities combat illegal trafficking from Ghana. She often joked that since most couriers at the time hid drugs in her bras, her slim build and short stature made her of little value to the cartel, that she preferred to recruit tall women. with a flat chest.

Aunt Rose had been helping fight drug trafficking in England before meeting other Ghanaians similarly involved, and agreed to join a team to take the battle to Ghana and play a role in disrupting the cartel’s operations in its host city, Kumasi. When a reformed member of the cartel was kidnapped, she helped secure the intervention of Asantehene, king of Ashanti, who sent his king’s men to secure the captive’s release.

The shoe queen at Kumasi’s famous Kejetia market had been convicted of drug cartel involvement and had served a prison sentence. When, after her release, it was suspected that she might be involved in reviving the cartel’s activities, Aunt Rose posed as an agent for a British shoe exporter to gain access to the Queen’s Manhyia mansion. footwear.

Aunt Rose’s Ghanaian friends were intrigued by her unusually small stature and compared her to the mmoatia, imaginary child-sized forest dwellers featured in the famous Ananse (Spider) stories of Ghana. She certainly possessed the cunning and quick wit of a mmoatia. When she was sitting at an office desk swinging her short legs in a characteristic way, she was watched to make sure her feet weren’t pointed backwards.