“The newest cloth design is called ‘God knows.’ Young girls always need fashionable things.”

Customers flock to the cloth stall of Ernestina Quarcoopome and her daughter Marjorie Botchway to see the latest design of Ghana’s classic blue-and-white cloth.

Marjorie uses skills learned during secretarial school to help her mother run the business. The mother-daughter team joined an association of about 100 cloth vendors who contribute monthly to a revolving credit system. Once every two years, each contributor receives 10 million cedis ($5,000 in 1997) from the fund to buy cloth in bulk.