Qualla: Dédougou https://qualla.com/dedougou en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/j/w/dedougou-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Dédougou https://qualla.com/dedougou Dédougou: Introduction https://qualla.com/dedougou/ Photo credit Nomwindé, CC BY-SA 4.0. Every other February, the dust of Dédougou fills with spirits. Masks of fibre and leaf and carved wood emerge to the beat of drums - towering forms that twirl, charge, and bow before crowds packed in from across West Africa. This is FESTIMA, the International Festival of Masks and the Arts, and for a few electric days it turns an unremarkable provincial town in western Burkina Faso into the masked capital of the region. The rest of the year, Dédougou returns to its quieter self: a market town of around 64,000 people, capital of the Boucle du Mouhoun, going about its business under the Sahelian sun.

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Image: Nomwindé | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/j/w/dedougou-wk/efjw-d-dougou-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Dédougou: The Masks Come Out https://qualla.com/dedougou/ Photo credit PGskot, CC BY-SA 4.0. FESTIMA was born here in 1996, founded by the Association for the Safeguarding of Masks - ASAMA - to keep ancient traditions alive in a fast-modernizing age. Held every two years, it gathers masks from some twenty Burkinabè villages and from neighbouring countries like Mali and B...

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Image: PGskot | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/j/w/dedougou-wk/efjw-d-dougou-the-masks-come-out.mp3 0:06 2 full Dédougou: Crossroads of the Mouhoun https://qualla.com/dedougou/ Photo credit Marco Schmidt [1], CC BY-SA 3.0. Dédougou is the capital of Mouhoun Province and the wider Boucle du Mouhoun Region - the great loop of the Mouhoun, the river the colonizers called the Black Volta. Among the ten largest cities in Burkina Faso, it sits where roads converge: National Road 10, paved, runs down to t...

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Image: Marco Schmidt [1] | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/j/w/dedougou-wk/efjw-d-dougou-crossroads-of-the-mouhoun.mp3 0:06 3 full Dédougou: A Town's Small Pleasures https://qualla.com/dedougou/ Photo credit Rik Schuiling / TropCrop - Tropical Crops Services, CC BY-SA 3.0. Daily life in Dédougou has its own modest delights. The market runs every day, much like any market in Burkina, but the town hides a few surprises. One well-known boutique stocks treasures rarely found outside the capital - canned vegetables, juices, even mushrooms and bean sprou...

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Image: Rik Schuiling / TropCrop - Tropical Crops Services | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/j/w/dedougou-wk/efjw-d-dougou-a-towns-small-pleasures.mp3 0:06 4 full Dédougou: The Writer's Country https://qualla.com/dedougou/ Photo credit PGskot, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dédougou and its region gave West Africa one of its important literary voices: Nazi Boni, the politician and writer whose monument stands in town. His novel Crépuscule des temps anciens, published in 1962, drew on the history and folklore of his Bwa homeland - including the memor...

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Image: PGskot | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/f/j/w/dedougou-wk/efjw-d-dougou-the-writers-country.mp3 0:06 5 full