Things to Do in Ouagadougou in September

September is curtain-up for rural harvest rituals. At Boussouma, Mossi masks tower above the dancers, each one hewn from kapok and painted with river-bed pigments that bleed in the damp. You sit on goat-skin mats while elders decode the line-up: this one calls rain, that one phones the ancestors. When afternoon thunder rolls across the savanna, the dancers stamp up rust-red clouds that hang in the humid air like stage smoke.

The central market's spice aisle turns heady in September humidity. Cardamom pods and dried hibiscus leak oils you can smell 10 m (33 ft) before you reach the stall. Vendors ladle tô, cool, fermented millet porridge, from calabash bowls that defy the 33°C (91°F) heat. Over at the meat tables, the fly count is still tolerable; October's invasion hasn't hatched.

When storm clouds split in late afternoon, the murals near Place des Cinéastes light up like slides on a screen. Artists paint in the cool mornings, so September visitors see fresh pigment before October's dust storms sand-blast it. The giant wall on Rue Kwame Nkrumah still blazes with Sankara's 1983 revolution in colours that haven't been sun-bleached yet.

The park's 3 km (1.9 mile) loop is finally firm underfoot, the first time since June. Giraffes loiter around waterholes that haven't evaporated, and storm-filtered sunset light turns the dust gold at 5:30 pm. Warthogs root in soil soft enough for their snouts, a trick that's impossible once the ground bakes hard in dry season.

Dyeing indigo loves September's 70 % humidity; the vats ferment faster than in the 25 % air of inland winter. You pound cotton strips with wooden mallets, matching the rhythm local women have kept for centuries, while the sharp scent of fermented leaves and wood ash drifts off the dye pits.