Musée de Manéga

The museum at Manéga was founded by the lawyer and poet Frédéric Pacéré Titinga on his family's land, and it is unlike the state museums: bronze figures cast for the collection, masks from across the country, a reconstructed Mossi compound, a hall of traditional pharmacy and a library of texts written on bark cloth. The whole thing is a personal project on a scale nobody else has attempted in the country. The founder also built a mausoleum and a set of monuments on the same ground, so the site reads as much as a personal statement as a public collection.

What you actually see

• The bronze figures - the cast works commissioned for the collection.
• The mask hall - material gathered from across Burkina Faso.
• The bark-cloth library - texts written on beaten bark.
• The reconstructed compound - the Mossi household rebuilt on the site.

When to go

November to February is the cool dry season. The museum keeps daytime hours and closures happen. March to May is extremely hot.

Honest expectations

Opening is irregular and depends on staff being there. The collection is idiosyncratic and interpretation is thin. The road out from Ouagadougou is rough in stretches.

Nearby

Ouagadougou is south, and Ziniaré is east.