A small city located in the mountains a couple hours north of Accra, Mpraeso is famous for its grinding bowls used throughout Ghana. The bowls are constructed with a wheel-like handbuilding method unique to the region.
Abena Fante, a Mpraeso potter, shows us her silvery polished ware and funerary figures.
Adjoa Effa, wedging and preparing the clay to make a grinding pot.
The potters of Mpraeso work on stone columns with bats, unlike much traditional local pottery created directly on the ground.
Spinning around the column, Adjoa creates a perfectly symmetrical piece, much like the potters wheel, with the human as the circling part and motor.
The rim is thick and sturdy to survive the grinding process. When the side walls dry a bit on the bat, the floor is added and shaped.
These are the Mpraeso potter's tools: wooden blocks, beans, corn cobs, beads, and rocks.
Beans and corncobs are scraped along the inside to create the texture for grinding food.
A set of glass beads is used to burnish the outside of the pot.
One of the potter's daughters demonstrated how to use the grinding bowls, much like our mortar & pestle, but the inside texture really crushes and brings out the flavor of the ingredients.
It rained all night in Mpraeso so we woke up to a foggy drive through the rainforest.
