Yacouba Sawadogo: The Man Who Conquered the Desert

Yacouba Sawadogo was the village idiot. At least that was what everyone in his small province of Yatenga in Burkina Faso thought. After all, everyone knew that you broke up the hard ground and planted your crops during the rainy season. Without rain, the crops would never grow.
And who planted trees in this arid region near the edge of the Sahara Desert. People didn't need trees, they needed food. After all, the older people had chopped down the trees in order to make the land ripe for farming. Who would plant a tree in the middle of their crops? Everyone knew the trees stole the water, and they took away valuable farm land.
More than that, Yacouba was hacking down termite nests and planting them next to the trees. Didn't termites eat trees? They were the enemy of trees!
Yes, Yacouba must be an idiot. Even the local chieftains said so.
Soon they all found that they were wrong.

Find out more about this man who discovered how to turn the Sahara Desert into a forest in this short 15-minute children's biography.

Ages 10 and up.
Reading Level: 6.5

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