Faraway People Series
Hitting the Road

Most New Zealanders live in wooden houses, an inexpensive material that offers the best resistance to the regular earthquakes shaking their earth. But that’s not the only reason. In this country where people move very often, these houses offer added value: you can take the house along with you. And so New Zealand’s roads display traveling houses, garages, stores, if not churches on a jaunt, New Zealand style!

Faraway People Series
Amazon's of Cotonou

In Cotonou’s huge market of Dantopka, everything can be bought, everything can be sold. And for women, it is a matter of survival. Some of them have managed to make fortunes. Here is where Justine Chodaton began her business some 60 years ago. Today her annual turnover is in billions of CFA francs. Each time she returns to this market, a riot nearly ensues. At 82, sellers have elected her President of their union, director of 36 Beninese markets, as well as delegate. At the other end of town, on the Cotonou docks, Awa Codjo carefully monitors the unloading of a ship.
This determined woman came up with a good recipe to make a fortune selling fish.
In this country, women are still suffering from the weight of tradition. They are often constrained to provide for their children themselves as, because of polygamy, husbands are often unable to support their families. And so, they had no other choice but to create a dynasty of retailing women!