My mum used to have a range of baskets she used for shopping or to keep knitting in and I’ve been wanting something like it for the past years. Baskets seem to be a more common thing in Germany versus the UK as I only rarely see people use them in town and I don’t recall ever seeing a place that sells them.
Tonight I decided to have a look if I could find the type of basket I’m after and, thanks to the brilliance of the internet, I found it and am now an expert on Ghana baskets, bearing in mind I didn’t even know their name before I started! This is how I discovered it:
- Google image search for ‘korb’ [German word for basket].
- Google image search for ‘basket‘. Related searches based on that included: ‘shopping basket‘, ‘wood basket‘, ‘picnic basket‘, ‘open picnic basket‘. None of those were right though.
- Google image search for ‘einkaufskorb’ [German word for shopping basket] which, on the second page lead me to a site listing the type of basket I’m after as ‘Afrika Korb’ [Africa basket]. It also linked me through to another site which seemed rather dodgy [tumblr link, not the actual site!].
- A further Google image search lead me to ‘Ghana basket‘.
- This lead me to the German Amazon site which had a bit more detail about them.
Turns out the baskets I’m after are:
- From Bolga, the capital of both the Bolgatanga Municipal District and the Upper East Region of Ghana. Thanks, Wikipedia!
- Made 100% out of savannah grass.
- Handmade.
- Take about two days to make.
It’s also available on Amazon UK, too, and I’ve added it to my wishlist. £25 means I should wait a little while before I’ll buy it, but I am rather proud I’ve managed to hunt them down!
