My daughter L (17) stands in front of the world map in the kitchen – it is her turn to find the country where we are stopping in. She assumes correctly that it is in Africa but it takes a while to find it within the 54 African countries. But there it is, right above Benin, where we have already stopped. In economic terms, it is considered one of the poorest countries in the world, with over 40% of the population living below the poverty line and with growing insecurity, violence and internal displacement. Named Burkina Faso in 1984 by President Thomas Sankara, the words come from two different languages spoken in the country (Mooré and Dioula) to form a mix which can be translated as the ‘Land of Incorruptible People’. Burkina Faso also has a capital with the grooviest of names, Ouagadougou. 

But first as ways: Food.

Moderate flavours

As a couple of future Virtual Nomad nights are going to be big ones, our intention was to hold a small Virtual Nomad night, whichwe achieved. Consisting of only five core members, we had a lovely night of interesting food and good conversation. I was almost entirely responsible for the preparation of the menu which certainly tested my mastercheffing skills but I can happily say that in the end my Burkinabé food is edible (Not outstanding but definitely not food poisoning-inducing!). My daughter L (17) and her boyfriend (very soon to be 18) were in charge of the dessert and they did a beautiful job.

Riz Gras is considered the national food of Burkina Faso. The name of the dish has French influence, with ‘Riz Gras’ meaning Fat Rice. As Burkina Faso is a resource deficient country, the cuisine is not rich in ingredients and this dish is very easy to prepare. As the name indicates, it has a good portion of rice, prepared in generous amounts of oil. The recipe I was following basically had rice, tomatoes, garlic, onions, tomato paste and beef. It is a dish that is also found in other parts of West Africa, especially in Senegal (where its variation is called Benachin) and Mali where it is called Zaamè. We ate something similar for the Benin entry: jollof rice. The dish carries some spices, but is generally mild. It was well received by the meat eaters and probably the favourite out of the four main dishes. However, it was clearly less enthusiastically consumed than the Bulgarian cuisine dishes and considered simple, good food without much fanfare. 

I also prepared Babenda, another rice dish. It usually includes locust beans but because they are not available in Sydney, I substitute them with salted black beans that I find at the Asian Market. Apart from beans, Babenda has greens (kale or spinach, I used spinach as it is less bitter), roasted peanuts and chilli. It is often combined with fish but I opted for a version without and the result is quite delicious. Again, it does not have a strong flavour but the combination of salted beans, peanuts and spinach is quite lovely for the palate regardless. It does feel like a side dish more than a main and luckily preserves well so that we can enjoy it throughout the week.  

Ragout d’igname is basically a stew prepared with yam. I cannot find yam so I use sweet potato instead with full knowledge that it is not a great substitute. Mine became a bit soupier than intended so we eat it as a first dish. The basic idea of the dish is to cook yam in tomato sauce until the water evaporates and the sauce thickens. Beef and other meats are optional so I decide to make the dish vegetarian. Ragout d’igname is basically a yam dish – interestingly, there is a belief in Western Africa that a woman that eats yam is likely to have twins. My version is very different from what I expect the real dish to be like- the taste of sweet potato makes the whole dish slightly bland.

Mafé is basically a peanut sauce. It is the national dish of Mali – so we will probably visit this dish again when Virtual Nomad stops there – but also very popular in Burkina Faso. In Burkina Faso, Poulet Mafé (chicken mafé) is very popular – chicken is cooked in a peanut butter sauce and served with rice. I decided to use fake chicken (“vegetarian chicken”) which of course did not taste the way it was supposed to. I enjoyed it but other non-vegetarian Virtual Nomads did not so next time, maybe when we get to Mali, I will prepare it with real chicken. 

The cherry on top was a delicious dessert. L (17) and her boyfriend NA (17) were in charge of preparing Dégué – a drink made of yogurt and grains. The traditional recipe includes pearl millet but L and NA use couscous instead which is also a popular choice for this recipe and not at all a faux pas. Very heavy on the dairy side; it has yoghurt, sour cream, condensed milk, vanilla milk. The result is delicious, fresh and milky – they did a great job!

The Land of Incorruptible People

Once upon a time, the plains of Burkina Faso were inhabited by different nations such as the Bobo, the Lobi, the Dioula and the Gurunsi. They still live in Burkina Faso alongside over 60 other ethnic groups, although the largest is the Mossi people who arrived in the region around the 15^th century. The Mossi established several kingdoms including Tenkodogo, Yatenga, Zandoma, and Ouagadougou (still the name of the capital), and resisted different threats and enemies for centuries. When France decided that, for some reason, a large part of Western Africa belonged to it, Burkina Faso became a French colony from 1895 to 1960.  Colonialism rarely brings ease and blessings to the native population – leading to resistance, for example the Volta-Bani War (1915 – 1917), one of the most significant rebellions against a colonial government (even in the scale of the whole of Africa).  Named Upper Volta in 1919, the name stuck until 1984. Upper Volta/Burkina Faso became independent in 1960.

The first years of the country were turbulent with different dictators overthrowing each other, until Thomas Sankara became Prime Minister, and then President. His short four years of rule have been considered one of the most progressive times in the history of Burkina Faso – he implemented vaccination programs for the whole country, expanded women’s rights (including the prohibition of female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy), improved infrastructure, encouraged domestic agriculture, reduced foreign debt; implemented nationwide and changed the name of the country to draw distance from the colonial past. He has been called the Che Guevara of Africa (note from L the proofreader – a major figure of the Cuban revolution – good to do Virtual Nomad to learn these things for the first time!), for his Marxist ideologies but also that despite his significant social programs, his government prosecuted (and executed) political opponents. Nevertheless, he is a national hero and the spirit of his legacy has inspired resistance and resilience in times of hardship. Che was then killed in a coup by a close friend and former ally Blaise Compaoré who did very little to make things better during his long regime (1987 -2014) and most progress was quickly lost pushing Burkina Faso back to being one of the poorest in the world. He left the country in 2014, due to an uprising caused by his failed attempt to alter the constitution to give him even more power. He was found guilty of Thomas Sankara’s murder in 2022. Burkina Faso is currently under another military rule and several political rights are restricted. In addition, the country has been experiencing Jihadist insurgency since 2015 and 10% of the population are internally displaced. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, in 2024 this is the world’s most neglected displacement crisis. In 2024, Burkina Faso, with its military ruled neighbours Niger and Mali, left the African Union and ECOWAS, Economic Community of Western Africa and formed their own coalition.   

More than 70 languages are spoken in the country. French was the official language until January 2024 when a ratified Constitutional Amendment defined French as a ‘working language’ together with English. More than half of the population speak Mooré. The economy is agriculture-based, with cotton as the main crop. The major resource for agriculture are the three rivers running into Ghana: Mouhoun (Black Volta), Nazinon (Red Volta) and Nakanbé (White Volta). According to the United Nations’ Human Development Index, Burkina Faso is the world’s 9^th poorest country in the world with continuing insecurity and threat of violence, political unrest, climate change and limited natural resources. 

Books from Burkina: aspirations of a better life  

Monique Ilboudo is Burkina Faso’s first female novelist. She has managed to break into the international market – to the extent that even my local library has one of her books. She works at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ouagadougou and has published several novels. My first book for Burkina Faso is her 2018 novel So Distant From My Life (translated by Yarri Kamara). It is a rather brief book but packs a lot in its mere 127 pages. It is narrated by Jeanphi, a young Burkinabé man obsessed with the idea of immigrating. He is a lazy and failing student with a studious sister and after a few attempts, his life changes when he meets a wealthy French man. 

“The word expatriation intrigued me, especially as a few pages later in the same newspaper, another article lamented ‘the tragedy of illegal immigration”… Why are some people expatriates, while other migrate, emigrate or immigrate? Reading the various definitions just confused me further. The words had almost the same meaning. Expatriation means you migrate to another country. When you leave, you emigrate, ad when you arrive, you immigrate.”

Overall, it is a confusing book. It tries hard to go in several different directions without really reaching anything solid. The first part of the book is a fascinating read and well narrated, with a captivating story and narrative that carries well. However,  the book then becomes confusing, with a few characters that enter and leave without any explanation or depth. It is a book of several great ideas that have been mostly left half-finished. One theme is migration and there are interesting developments and concerns, including the motivations and actions of the main character, but they do not really go anywhere concrete. The  Another is the criticism of the NGO-isation (and the well-meaning white saviours) but again there is so much room to go deeper. Then one theme is the sexual orientation (or sort of) of some of the characters, but again the development is artificial and thin. This is a book of a lot of intent despite little delivery, and leaves me wishing the author had given more time and dedication to build a rounder, more substantial body for everything she wants to discuss – be that colonialism, racism, corruption, tradition, religion, sexual orientation, family relationships, NGOs, international organisations, enraging whites and ‘development workers’ who present themselves as experts on Africa. In the end, it’s a pity because it could have been a great look at the country and in the end it just didn’t have enough structure. 

In spite of trying too much in this book, I still believe Monique is a very skilled writer so I try to get a hold of another book of hers, her awarded debut Le Mal de Peau, that is centered around a similar story to one of the movies I watched for the Bosnia and Herzegovina entry – the relationship between a mother and a daughter, born from a rape by a repressor. Unfortunately I am unable to find the book. 

I decide to read another highly rated Burkinabé book, Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman by Malidoma Some, a traditional healer and shaman with three Master’s degrees and two PhDs (one from Sorbonne). It is an autobiographical story of Malidoma’s path from being taken from his native village aged 4 and then subjected to religious indoctrination and cruel treatment at a French speaking Catholic boarding school where he forgot his native language. In the boarding school he witnessed all kinds of horrors, ranging from sexual abuse to beatings, all while yearning to return home. Years later, he returned to the village of his childhood where he started his true spiritual journey by first going through a month-long initiation ceremony, described in detail – the dreams, hallucinations, mystical journeys and encounters with the spiritual world. In the end he finds himself in the crossroads between two worlds, where the natural and the magical/supernatural blend together. Finally, he sees his role as a bridge builder between the spiritual, ritual, supernatural world and modern life. His name means “he who is friends with strangers.”

To be honest, I am not the best audience for spiritual self-help books, so again I cannot give the best review of this book. It is certainly interesting as a life story, but the spiritual side is unfortunately, personally just not compelling. But there are people that really love this book, and it has its unique value and is probably a wonderful introduction to the importance of spiritual rituals, connecting with ancestors and searching for one’s purpose. I read it as a life story and an interesting description of West African/Burkinabé traditions, but I understand that to a different reader it can be a very fulfilling spiritual experience as well.  

The Burkina Faso Movie Festival 

Burkina Faso is one of the countries producing the most feature films in Africa. It has an active film industry and a number of interesting, quality films. FESPACO – the Pan African Film and Television Festival, is a biennial event held in Ouagadougou. It is the largest Film Festival in Africa and the largest event in the world dedicated to African filmmaking. All this makes Burkina Faso one the core industries of African filmmaking.  

So. Time to decide what to watch from the country’s broad film offer. When a country has a strong film industry, we try to watch around ten of the top films. Deciding involves looking at different ‘best of’ lists regarding the essential Burkinabé films. 

The Guardian list (2020) of the 20 best African films includes two films from Burkina Faso – Yaaba (1989 – spot 12) and Borders (2017 – spot 20).  The website of Purely Africa (which celebrates African culture and diversity) has several ‘best film’ lists by African reviewers which include both Yaaba and Borders in high spots, as well as movies such as Buud Yam (1997) and Tilaï (1993). Other lists also include Bravo Burkina (2023) that gained momentum at the Sundance festival. The Cine Escapist list of the 54 best African movies (one from each country) mentions Yaaba (spot 50) for Burkina Faso. The Filmroot list includes Wallay (2017), Sankofa (1993) and The Crossing (2022). As a homage to the Burkinabé film industry, our intention is to watch all of these, but as most of the versions we get a hold of only have subtitles in French, I end up watching most of them by myself. 

I/we managed to see (in order of watching): Yaaba (1989), Samba Traoré (1993), Tilaï (1990), Buud Yam (1997), Sankofa (1993), Wallay (2017), Bravo Burkina (2023)  – and we also include Sira (2023) that JK and I have recently seen at the Sydney Film Festival. To my great disappointment, I am not able to find a copy of Borders or The Crossing and I will have to place them on the watch list for a future occasion. I am especially sad about not being able to watch Borders, so if I get an opportunity to watch it in the future, this section will be updated. 

My first film Yaaba (1989) is often referred to as one of the best films from Francophone Africa. It is written and directed by Idrissa Ouedraogo who is also the director of Samba Traoré and Tilaï. Idrissa was a renowned director, considered the great Burkinabé master of filmmaking whose movies, both short and feature, often focus around the balance between tradition and modernity in rural and urban Burkina Faso. 

Shot in location in Idrissa’s home village, Yaaba is a story of a boy who has lost his mother and befriends an older woman who the other village members call a sorceress, avoiding her. The boy calls her ‘Yaaba’ (grandmother) and finds a place of acceptance with her. It is a film of long shots and a simple, slow-pacing story. It is a story exploring prejudices, the weight of beliefs and traditions, unreasonable irrational adults and savvy children. It is interesting for its landscape, language and description of lifestyle, however is long, slow-paced and throughout the narrative, nothing much happens. According to the director, the movie is based on an African oral story that he heard in his childhood. Yaaba forms part of the second generation of African film that found inspiration in African oral traditions with universal elements – mixing the pan-African storytelling that honours its African roots while introducing elements that could make the films commercially viable. 

Samba Traoré (1993), again by Idrissa Ouedraogo, is a very different movie from Yaaba. It won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival and has a more prominent style closer Western storytelling than the slower-paced Yaaba. After a botched robbery in the city, one of the robbers escapes to his village with the money. He tries to live a normal life but his past haunts him. The story is basically a morality tale of guilt. It has a more dynamic rhythm and storytelling than Yaaba which makes it easier to watch. The landscape again is fascinating– a mix of urban and rural environments. The scenography is visually very pleasing, and the leads Mariam Kaba and Bakary Sangaré look good together. It is an interesting story built around the idea that one should take responsibility for one’s actions or the past will not only hurt you but also the people around you. 

Another movie by Idrissa is Tilaï (1990), winning the Jury Prize in Cannes in 1990. It is a story following family pride, loyalty and betrayal on various levels. The story focuses on Saga who returns to his rural village home only to find that his fiancé Nogma has been married to his father. Saga’s mother (his father’s first wife) is still alive and sidelined by the young bride. Nogma does not love her old husband and rekindles the flame with Saga who quits the family much to the father’s discontent. Nothing stays secret and Saga’s soft and conciliatory brother finds himself in a difficult position between his father and brother, and is required to take action to restore the family pride. Tradition weighs heavily on the village and ‘tilaï’ (law) needs to be followed, leading to communal loss. This is my favourite of the three films by Idrissa, being more complex, nuanced and multilayered than the other two. When Saga’s young sister asks her mom to explain life to her because she does not understand why Nogma has married an old man and not the man she loves, her mother angrily brushes her off and says:” Nogma will love her husband just like I do mine. That is how life goes.” When she asks Saga’s brother to help Nogma, he simply says;” We can’t do anything. It is her destiny.”. Throughout, the film shows similar simple sentences that pack so much meaning in a life of no choice which will lead to devastation and loss. 

When Buud Yam (1997) by Gaston Gaboré was released in Burkina Faso, it became the most successful Burkinabé movie by that date. Strongly embedded in oral tradition, it is a story of a young man in search for his roots. It is a sequel to Wend Kuuni (1993) by the same director. I decide not to watch the first movie and only the second, as the number of Burkinabé movies is already piling up, but I understand that the first movie is about the origins of the main character, Wend Kuuni. The second movie is about prejudices, identity, remembrance and redemption. When his adopted sister falls ill, Wend Kuuni is accused of bringing back luck to the family and is forced to flee and find a healer who can heal his sister. It is a common storyline of a hero’s journey with a slow paced African storytelling and a subtle criticism of superstition and discrimination. Visually pleasing, the movie offers beautiful landscapes as Wend Kuuni travels through different landscapes and meets different people along his journey. 

Sankofa (1993) is a co-production between Burkina Faso, Ghana, US and Ethiopia. It is directed by a US-based Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima, and is his most famous movie. More than a Burkina Faso-movie as such, it is a Pan-African tale of the brutality of slavery. The word ‘sankofa’ comes from the Akan language, spoken mainly in Ghana and is interpreted to mean gaining wisdom from the past. The movie itself is said to encourage people of African Diaspora to not forget their roots. In the movie a young model called Mona is on a photoshoot in Ghana when a spirit of Sankofa (depicted as a bird in the movie) transports her to the past to live the life of one of her ancestors, a slave called Shola on a plantation in the Southern United States. 

There are very few movies about slavery by African-born directors and that makes Sankofa particularly remarkable. It shows the brutality of slavery, and presents the diversity (of origin) of slaves who all came from different places and nations and were thrown together into a merciless existence embedded with the longing for freedom and motherland. While it is harrowing and effective in its depiction of ruthless plantation owners and callous priests, it would have been an even better movie without a distracting and somehow unnecessary subplot of a mixed-raced son of a slave Joe and his inner turmoil which I find poorly represented. There are moments of emotional effectiveness, poetic undertones especially related to music and stories connecting to the motherland but there are several weaknesses that take away from a film that could have been very powerful and valuable. But this said, even in its unevenness, Sankofa is an important movie and unique in its portrayal of the enslaved as rootless individuals thrown into an inhuman reality – a painful embarrassment to the human race, as any forms of slavery have been and continue to be. 

Wallay (2017) by Berni Goldblatt is another movie in the African cinematographic tradition that looks into the balance and conflict between tradition and modernity. The movie follows a teenage boy Ady living in France who is sent to rural Burkina Faso to live with his uncle Amadou. It is a classic coming-of-age movie that offers very few surprises. As expected, at first a reluctant and modern technology-driven teen, Ady finds a place of love and acceptance in the homeland of his father. There is a cultural tradition tension with Ady’s uncle who is expecting Ady to do something that would make him more ‘culturally acceptable’. Shot with love and tenderness towards the tradition and motherland, it is a tale of finding roots and identity, personal growth, family relation and intergenerational relations. 

Bravo Burkina (2023) by Walé Oyéjidé is a melancholic tale of immigration and the space between the past and the present that most immigrants know well. When the past is no longer yours and the present will never be yours, immigrants are often stuck ‘in between’ time and place, belonging and alienation, and not fully being rooted anywhere. Walé Oyéjidé is a filmmaker, but also writer and designer with his own design brand. He describes his brand Ikiré Jones as “fashion to celebrate the perspectives of marginalized people”. Walé was the costume designer for Black Panther which explains a lot of the visuals of this film. Bravo Burkina is quite experimental and made in collaboration with asylum seekers and traditional weevers. As said, it is a dream-like experiment – a man travels through time to Burkina Faso of his childhood to live and feel what he has left behind and lost. Despite definitely being beautiful and a visual feast the story itself unfortunately does not really take off. 

One movie that I really wanted to see is Borders by Apolline Traoré (2017) which follows the journey of four women on a bus through different borders in Western Africa, and the stories these women have. But despite not being able to get a hold of a copy of that movie, fortunately there is another movie from Apolline that I have been able to see.  During the Sydney Film Festival 2023, JK and I headed to see Sira (2023); Apolline’s latest movie. It won the Berlinale Panorama Audience Award. Sira is a young woman who survives an Islamic terrorist kidnapping in the desert just before her wedding. She is left in the desert to die, proceeding to seek revenge in a badass way. Apolline said in an interview that she started writing the story after hearing about a massacre in Burkina Faso that claimed more than 160 lives in one village. She wanted to film the movie in Burkina Faso, but due to the security issues could not, and filmed it in Mauritania instead. The movie is filmed in Fula and the mission for Apolline was to show the current situation in Burkina Faso while underlining the courage and sacrifice of women in this situation. An interesting fact is that when Apolline returned to live in Burkina Faso in 2005, she started working with Idrissa (the director of the first three movies I saw for this entry).

The movie itself could be described as an action film in the desert. There is a fair bit of graphic violence, from sexual violation to massacre. Both JK and I appreciated seeing it because it was not what we expected to see, however we also shook our heads a bit at the not believable parts of revenge and general bad-assing. But we do understand that Sira is an action movie, and action movies are universally exaggerated in their hero’s capabilities, so why would not this one be as well. At the same time there is something quite remarkable in this movie – it is in the end a very bold manifestation against the violence suffered by civilians. Therefore there is something satisfying in the way the one woman army goes after the baddies even if it does not always happen in real life. 

Vibrant Art Scene

Just like the strong film industry, Burkina Faso also has a vibrant art and music scene. There are several really interesting artists in different disciplines. We have chosen to look at the art of Adjaratou Ouedraogo, a Togo-born artist currently living in Burkina Faso. Her art is vibrant, colourful and simple. She works with different mediums; painting, drawing,sculpture and even animated film. It has been said to reflect the child that she once was, who survived a traumatic event of abuse at the age of 8. Many of her artworks deal with the themes of childhood and family, mixed with the notion of hope. She has held exhibitions around the world: one of her recent solo exhibitions was called Resilience.  

Photo credit: https://www.lagalerie38.com/en/expositions/ode-to-union-by-adjaratou-ouedraogo/ 

Next stop: Burundi

Thank you L for the proof reading