But like others in the country's cocoa towns and on the plantations, Diakite said that his business had been down in the last two years. The cocoa harvest has been weak. What is more, thousands of people from Mali and Burkina Faso have become the targets of xenophobia inside an increasingly unstable Ivory Coast. Many have left the country.
Employer reneges on payment
The worldwide prices of cocoa have also reached historic lows, forcing farmers to rely more and more on family members. That appears to be the reason the man who hired Yacouba Diarra paid him only US$13.
According to Yacouba's account, he and another 14-year-old from the same village went looking for work in Sikasso, a city in Mali near the border with Ivory Coast. His friend took them to a distant relative, named Madou, who introduced Yacouba to the man for whom he would work for the next year, a Malian named Moussa Sangare. Madou asked US$160 for each of the boys, Yacouba recalled. After some haggling, a deal was made for about US$135.
The two boys and Sangare eventually arrived on the man's cocoa plantation. After a month's work, Yacouba's friend fell ill and was sent back to Mali. Yacouba stayed for the full year, living with the family.
But after a year, Sangare refused to pay Yacouba. Yacouba was owed US$135 -- minus the initial transportation fee from Mali, an identity card that Sangare had had made for him and incidentals. He reckoned about US$100 was left.
Sangare gave him US$13, Yacouba recalled, and told him to leave. Yacouba wanted the remaining US$87.
The plantation, in Petit Tieme, is a few hours away on a bad road. It is a typical African village, where everyone knows everybody else's business. Several young men in the village said they knew about the case of Yacouba Diarra, and, without prodding, confirmed that he had been paid only US$13 for a year's work.
At the edge of the village, Sangare, a man in his 40s, was sitting on a wooden bench in the middle of his courtyard. His family lived in three small mud-brick buildings. It was Friday, a day of rest for him and the rest of the villagers.
"Yacouba Diarra?" Sangare said, the smile with which he had greeted a stranger vanishing at the mention of the name.
Sangare denied that he had hired Yacouba through a broker in Sikasso. "I met his mother on the road, and she agreed to have him work for me," he said, looking down at the ground. His hands shook.
Asked why he had not paid the boy, he said he had gone to Mali a month before to give the money to the boy's mother.
"The money has been given to the mother of Yacouba Diarra," he said. "I gave her the money myself."
Asked to identify the mother's name and village, Sangare kept silent for perhaps a full minute, his eyes fixed at his feet. "I don't remember," he said finally.
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