Drawn from elements of West African folk tales, it depicts how a newborn boy, Kirikou, saves his village from the evil witch Karaba.

A money order from a relative in Paris throws the life of a Senegalese family man out of order. He deals with corruption, greed, problematic family members, the locals and the changing from his traditional way of living to a more modern one.

Mossane is a beautiful 14-year-old girl who has just reached marriageable age in a village in Senegal. She has many suitors, including a simple-minded farmer's son who plans to drag her away. Even her own brother Ngor is in love with her. However she is in love with Fara, a poor student who has returned to the village, while the university is on strike. At birth, she had been promised in marriage to Diogoye, who went away to work in France. Diogoye, who supplied her parents with many things over the years, has now sent a dowry, and asked that she be married to him in the village in his absence; she would then be sent to France.

Drawn from elements of West African folk tales, it depicts how a newborn boy, Kirikou, saves his village from the evil witch Karaba.