Sugar is sweet ......

Right next door to the conference centre where we are working, there is a girls' school, and across the road there is another private school.
The woman in this picture sits outside the school every day selling her wares. The bucket of sticks is actually lengths of sugar cane which people - especially children - love to chew to get a sugar hit. The cane sticks are very sweet and you chew bits of the stick to create a kind of syrup and spit out the remaining pulp and bark.
For those who live in the cities or the most affluent there is chocolate, mostly imported from S. Africa or made under licence in Malawi. However, for many - especially those in rural areas or the less well off - this is all they have to get their sugar hit. You often see people walking along holding them. The problem is that the sugar cane really rots their teeth and leaves many with dental problems.
The lady in the picture is also selling ground nuts which are in a basket on the ground beside the bucket of cane sticks. I suppose she is fulfilling the same role as a ice- cream van parked outside a school in the UK.