Ouagadougou

Ouagadougou's name means, by the old accounts, 'where people get honor' — and the city has spent half a century giving it to African cinema: FESPACO, the continent's greatest film festival, has crowned its Étalon de Yennenga here every two years since 1969, filling open-air screens with the films the world's festivals discovered later. Between editions the city runs on two wheels and courtesy: a moped capital of bronze casters, mask carvers and shade, where the Mossi kingdom's rites continue on their own calendar.

The traveller who goes — with counsel taken — times the journey to FESPACO if the stars allow, for the continent's cinema in its own house; visits the bronze workshops where the lost-wax method passes parent to child; learns the Mossi masks at the national museum in context rather than in shops; and takes the evening slowly with a brochette and a Brakina among the moped streams, which part around pedestrians with a courtesy that shames bigger cities.

The Guide's honesty, gently: Burkina's winds have been hard these years — much of the country lies beyond prudent reach, chancelleries counsel against non-essential travel, and the Guide does not argue with them: this page, too, holds a measure of patient love —; for those with cause to be there, the capital's rhythms are cash, French and Mooré greetings; and FESPACO's flame has kept burning through everything, which tells you what cinema means here. Honor, exactly as the name says.