"In middle school, I watched Chinese TV channels and dreamed of traveling to China and getting to know the culture," she told DW. "So I studied Chinese ... and attended courses for three years to gain a professional qualification in Chinese," she said.
After finishing school, Tchekpo enrolled at the Confucius Institute — China's government-run institute for the promotion of its language and culture — at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin. She hopes that one day she will get to look back at this as only being the beginning of big dream.
"I want to realize my dream of international trade by bringing tropical products from Benin to China and products from China to Benin," she said. "If possible," she added, "even to the whole of Africa."
