tabletop head

I just learned that Ghanaians call ketchup catch-up.

I learned this from a poster advertising tomato catch-up.

The poster is in a kenkey boutique.

Kenkey is a fermented paste made from corn and wrapped in corn husks. I hate it but my sweetheart loves it and it’s what he eats every day.

He eats it by the roadside with dried fish and red pepper. The local cats and their kittens gather between his legs to gaze imploringly upwards and he ‘dashes them’ small, frequent donations.

I don’t know why the serving place is often called a boutique but I am going to find out. Maybe just to be fancy. We were sitting under an awning while he ate kenkey with his long fingers, drinking sobolo, which is purple and made from hibiscus flowers, when a man walked past selling tables, that he made, from his table shop, which is his head. He was a long way down the road before I remembered that we needed a table and I thought of running after him but it’s hot and I’m drowsy and I’d never ketchup.