{"id":595,"date":"2014-07-05T08:05:46","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T08:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/?p=595"},"modified":"2019-06-20T14:15:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T18:15:13","slug":"craftsman-competes-in-market-in-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/2014\/07\/craftsman-competes-in-market-in-ghana\/","title":{"rendered":"American-Loving Craftsman Competes in Market Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Centre for National Culture, commonly known as the Arts Center, houses an enormous array of local crafts, such as Mohammad Sanio’s ebony carvings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Morgan Boyer<\/p>\n

Upon arrival at the Centre for National Culture, visitors \u00a0find themselves bombarded by craftsmen earnestly vying for their attention. Many of the stalls at the Centre sell the same goods\u2014ebony carvings, paintings of identical style, cloth and jewelry.<\/p>\n

In order to stand out among the sea of stalls, the onus is on the craftsmen to entice visitors \u00a0without being too aggressive. A man introduces himself as Colin Powell and asks where they are from.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re from Ireland?\u201d he asks three girls. \u201cDo you know Killarney? Drogheda? Cork?\u201d<\/p>\n

Impressed and surprised by his knowledge, they follow him into his stall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they built the new market, we became the backyard people,\u201d Sanio said. \u201cMy strategy became telling customers that if they name a state or country, and I don\u2019t know the capital, I will give them a free carved elephant. They challenge me and are forced to come to my shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colin Powell\u2019s real name is Mohammed Sanio. He earned the nickname after September 11th\u00a0when the largely Muslim market was buzzing about the attack. Sanio defended America, earning himself the name of the former US Secretary of State.Though often successful, his strategy poses risks for him with the Greater Accra Arts and Craft Dealers Association, who dictate that no vendor is allowed to sell outside of his shop.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mohammad<\/a>
Mohammad Sanio is a craftsman at the market who is skilled at ebony carving– and world geography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cColin faces problems in the market because the association plays favorites,\u201d said Issaka Sulemana, a 42-year-old neighboring craftsman. \u201cThey take the side of people who are from their villages or have mutual friends, and he\u2019s not one of those people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The consequences of breaking this rule are fines or suspension, but they aren\u2019t consistently enforced. If Sanio didn\u2019t search for customers at the front, they would rarely find his shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time people get back here\u2014if they find me at all\u2014their money\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Morgan Boyer Upon arrival at the Centre for National Culture, visitors \u00a0find themselves bombarded by craftsmen earnestly vying for their attention. Many of the stalls at the Centre sell the same goods\u2014ebony carvings, paintings of identical style, cloth and jewelry. In order to stand out among the sea of stalls, the onus is on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15,18,94,43,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":963,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}