buttah buttah

if you have ever wondered where on earth shea butter comes from*...

wonder no more!

at least some of the shea butter, for some of the people in the world comes from these women living in the small town of Kpatinga in northern Ghana.

the women pick the shea nuts growing wild nearby their town.


then they dry the nuts in their patio in the hot sun.


roast the nuts.


and finally crush them to extract the butter (my camera failed for the picture of the butter – but picture a gigantic bowl of vanilla icing swarming with flies…mmmm?)

and then finally hope someone will pay them for the fruits (or in this case butter) of their labor.

these women are hoping to someday form a women’s group to get a loan to get mechanized processing equipment so they don’t have to do this entire process by hand. but until that day comes, they will keep picking, drying, roasting, and crushing these nuts by hand.

*i know you have probably never actually wondered where shea butter comes from – i’m mostly counting on your general curiosity about the world here…I knew the word sounded familiar but beyond that I had no clue what it was for - according to the all knowing wikipedia “Shea butter is widely used in cosmetics as a moisturizer and an emollient.” Exactly…