Ouagadougou — Africans from all over the continent, and visitors from other parts of the world, have converged in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso this week, to attend the 17th edition of the pan-African festival of film and television, held in the city every two years.
But not everyone has come to Ouaga to watch or promote films. Some are simply in the Burkinabe capital to buy and sell - and there's a range of goods and services on offer. The festival is a one-week godsend bringing thousands of shoppers to town and anyone with something to trade is hoping to make a profit.
Walking along Ouagadougou's Avenue de la Resistance, pedestrians are learning to sidestep the street musicians and avoid bumping into traders offering everything from locally-grown strawberries to baobab and tamarind juice, as well as jewellery and African crafts galore.
The main targets are the festival-goers who seem quite willing to be lured into a buying opportunity, whether in the street or in the main market in the heart of the city.
Kalio Jackson was strolling through Ouagadougou market, but he had traveled from afar -- all the way from Libreville in Gabon, to attend the festival in Burkina Faso.
Although he enjoys African films, Jackson has not come to Ouaga simply to join the daily and nightly trot from cinema to cinema to catch as many movies as he can at Fespaco. "When the festival takes place, there are some American people, for example, journalists who come here, but they can¹t speak French. So, I help them and we work together. They are going to pay me and, after Fespaco, I will go back home." Jackson is a service provider.
Incidentally, Jackson's favourite film genre is comedy, or 'laughing jackals' as he describes it, imitating a jackal's cackle as he speaks.
Moving away from Ouagadougou central market and heading towards the dramatic Palais du Peuple, (The People's Palace), another kind of service provider is on standby. The riders of the mopeds (the motorized scooters that dominate the streets of the city) have transformed themselves into unofficial taxis. They hover at strategic junctions and locations, hoping to catch a fare and festival-goers are only too happy to be ferried.
Once at the People's Palace, you enter a shopper's dream at your own risk. The dusty courtyard of the ochre-coloured building has been taken over by market stalls, especially erected for the duration of the pan African film festival. They are inviting.
Jostling for space and customers, stall-holders cajole and entice. Bales of the official Fespaco printed cloth, bearing the rearing horse emblem of the film award, are on sale in three colours, blue, yellow and brown; those who have invested are doing a roaring trade.
The enterprising have quickly had the Fespaco cloth sewn up into shirts and frocks which are hanging in their stalls, waiting to be carried off to all parts of the continent and the globe. But those traders face stiff competition from people selling Fespaco T-shirts, sun hats and caps with visors, in many more colours and sizes.
Nomadic Tuaregs, with turbans attractively wrapped around their heads, have learnt that their silver, nickel and copper jewellery, bold coloured leather camel saddle bags and intricately embroidered cloth are hugely popular. They smile slow smiles and invite you to look around.
At the other side of the courtyard, one can hear complaints among the women from Mauritania, selling yards and yards of billowing colourful cloth called 'Khartoum', that business this year at Fespaco is slower than at previous festivals.
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The Mauritanians perk up as a determined shopper, wearing a Fespaco festival badge, approaches and begins fingering the cloth lovingly and knowingly; finally she scoops up a selection, pays and departs, a satisfied customer.
Just in case your shopping trip brings on an unexpected headache, or worse, a hernia, Dr Kofi Appiah, a traditional practitioner from Ghana, is standing by with his herbal remedies at his stall. Sitting behind rows and rows of neatly laid out bottles, unguents and potions, the 'doctor' fiddles with a stethoscope and promises to cure anything from impotence to bedwetting, from diarrhoea to syphilis.
But Dr Appiah warns that he cannot cure AIDS and repeatedly reminds his customers that while he and others continue to research plants and herbs, safe sex, condoms and abstinence are the only options if you want to stay alive.
