Baccalauréat · Série D · Anglais — 2023

Text: The field that came back

Ousmane inherited four hectares of land that nobody wanted. The soil was hard, pale and bare; when the rain came, it ran off the surface like water on a table. His father had abandoned the plot fifteen years earlier.

In the dry season, Ousmane began digging. He made small holes, about twenty centimetres wide, spaced regularly across the field, and dropped a handful of manure into each one. His neighbours laughed. Some told him he was wasting the only season in which he could rest.

The technique was not his invention. It is called zaï, and farmers in the north have used it for generations. What the holes do is simple: they catch the rain instead of letting it escape, and the manure attracts termites, whose tunnels open the hard soil from below.

The first harvest was poor. The second was better. By the fourth year, Ousmane was producing more per hectare than the neighbours who had laughed at him — and three of them had started digging holes of their own.

He does not present himself as an innovator. « I did not invent anything », he says. « I only listened to the old men before it was too late. »

Text written for this examination.