During the month of Ramadan, many women trade along public roads. This is the case around the Bobo-Dioulasso fruit and vegetable market where we met Aminata Angelina Sory and Awa Dao. All pancake sellers and Alima Toé occasional donut seller.
Trade, the main source of income for most households, is practiced by many women, especially during this period of Ramadan. Among these women, Aminata Angelina Sory. In her forties, this mother of a child excels in the sale of pancakes made from small millet. She says she started this job at the age of 12 with her grandmother and later with her mother. “I have been in this business for 32 years“, she said. In this month of Ramadan, the choice of many fasters is the cakes. This allows Aminata to reap profits so that she manages to meet her needs.
More expensive millet, oil and sugar
As in any human activity, one often encounters difficulties. Aminata tells us about the difficulties of her field such as: the price and the quality of the millet. “Before, the price of the bag varied between 15,000 CFA francs and 17,000 CFA francs. But nowadays, we see a rise in these prices to 31,000 CFA francs“. Regarding the quality of the small millet, she makes us understand that ” often these bags of millet contain small pebbles“. And often the quantity is such that she wonders if it is not “expressly madeby sellers in order to increase the weight of the bag. Other difficulties she encounters in this activity is the increase in the price of oil and sugar. Because of the above, Aminata Sory could only sell for 25 CFA francs per unit.
Unlike her, since 2008 Awa Dao has been selling pancakes made from rice. In her forties, she is the mother of six children. Through the spin-offs of her business, Awa attests that she “manages to contribute to certain family expenses as well as to the schooling of his children“. Like Aminata, Awa claims to have a lot of profit from the sale of her rice cakes in this month of Ramadan compared to other times of the year. listening to it, “My pancakes are not made with imported rice, but rather local” available near the SOFITEX Bobo III factory. She says she is having difficulties like the previous one. Among these difficulties is the lack of the raw material, local rice. This in turn leads to an increase in the purchase price. She also mentions the rise in the price of oil and sugar, because “I only use good quality oil produced here in Burkina Faso“, she says.
However, Alima Toé, in her thirties and mother of five, is a cake seller and has been selling bean fritters during the month of Ramadan for six years. Because for her,at this time, the demand for donuts far exceeds that for cakes. What is more profitable“. With these profits, Toé says he is able to meet most of his needs. Nevertheless, the major difficulty she encounters is coping with the price of beans estimated ateight hundred and fifty CFA francs the big box of tomato pastewhich, in the past, was sold between “five hundred and six hundred CFA francs”.
Norrockom Edwige KAM
Yéli Valentine KAM/Interns
