Translation Results Requested Through Conyac Made Public

Escaping from the unsightly, traffic-choked capital, Ouagadougou, is already a treat. As my taxi cruises along the straight asphalted road, the dust of “Ouaga” gives way to green fields. Skinny acacias and fat baobabs occasionally break the monotony of the plain.

After two and a half hours through arid savanna, we turn off onto a sandy, tree-lined dirt road. Another bumpy half-hour later, during which we only met a few bicycles, we finally reach Tiebele, set among the low hills that continue into Ghana, just a few kilometers away.

A young man in jeans and a sports jacket runs alongside the car, offering to be our guide. I am wary, being so used to having to shrug off all the self-proclaimed guides who latch onto any white person in Ouagadougou in the hope of making a few francs. But my taxi driver checks with the bored police officer of the village; he assures us that the young man, Bernard, is an official guide, so we follow him.
Once we have parked the aging red Toyota in the shade, not a single engine can be heard in the village.
It is soothingly quiet. Bernard walks us to theVillagers entrance to a mud hut compound. He explains that it can accommodate an extended family of nearly 200 people.