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Chaga And The Chocolate Factory
Target Group: KS1/KS2, aged 5-11
Slide 4
The African sun was bright. The African air was hot and dry. Chaga walked slowly along the
dusty West African road.
A man pedalled past on a brand new bicycle. Chaga wished he was that man and not a poor
boy with six poor brothers and sisters. And a poor mum and dad. And two poor dusty feet.
Slide 5
Suddenly, the man stopped. He climbed off his bicycle and he looked back at Chaga.
‘You, boy!’ he called. ‘What do you think of my bicycle?’
‘I like it! I like it very much!’
‘Would you like a bicycle of your own?’ the man asked.
Chaga nodded his head. ‘Yes sir,’ he said, ‘Yes, I would!’ But, Chaga thought, having a bicycle was just a dream. A dream that would never come true for a poor ten year old from a tiny
village in Mali.
‘Then take me to your parents,’ said the man. His smile was as bright as the sun. ‘I come
from a place far away where boys like you earn more than enough to have a bicycle and
take care of their family!’
The African sun was bright.
The African air was hot and dry.
But Chaga was on a bicycle, flying down the dusty road, his arms wrapped around the waist
of the man on the bicycle. He thought he could feel his hopes and dreams flying too!
Slide 6
When they reached Chaga’s house, the man spoke with Chaga’s parents. And with tears in
their eyes, Chaga’s parents said, ‘Yes, you may go’. Chaga’s parents cried: they would miss
their son. But they were also happy…. This job would give Chaga all that he had dreamed
of.
The man with the smile as bright as the sun said, ‘I’ll take you to work on a cocoa farm. A
chocolate factory!’ That’s where Chaga would be working. Chaga couldn’t sleep that night:
he dreamed of chocolate towers, rooms full of chocolate, tasting chocolate, bicycles – even
chocolate bicycles!
Chaga left home with the man the next morning, picking up other boys along the way. When
all the boys were ready a big truck appeared. Chaga had never seen anything like it. Maybe
this man was a magician after all, thought Chaga, as the boys hopped into the truck, laughing and talking.
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Slide 7
Chaga thought they would soon be in the land of chocolate. But they drove, and drove, and
drove a little more. Everything started to look very different. He told one of the boys he had
never seen this place before.
‘Of course not!’ said the boy. ‘We are in the Ivory Coast now, not Mali.’
Chaga hadn’t known they were going to a new country. He felt a little bit scared at being so
far away from his family.
Slide 8
Hours and hours later, Chaga and the boys finally stepped out of the truck, and onto the cocoa farm. The smiling Bicycle Man waved goodbye, and the boys were led to a little tin hut.
A new man came up to them and said, ‘This is where you’ll sleep.’
The new man did not smile.
Chaga stepped into the room and saw it was already full with boys. He longed for his own
home. But as he turned around, he heard the door shut and lock behind him. He was
trapped.
Some of the boys threw themselves at the door, pushing and heaving, trying to escape. But
Chaga just sat on the floor, and wiped the tears away from his eyes.
Slide 9
The boy next to Chaga turned to him.
‘What is this place? The Bicycle Man said we would be making chocolate,’ whispered Chaga.
‘The Bicycle Man,’ the boy sighed. ‘He bought me here four long years ago. And I haven’t
seen any chocolate. Or any bicycles.’
Chaga felt his heart sink.
‘We carry beans,’ the boy said. ‘Bags and bags of cocoa beans. We carry them from one
end of the farm to the other. They give us some food but not much. And we can’t leave…’
‘But why can’t you leave?’ whispered Chaga.
‘Where would we go?’ the boy, named Bokhari, answered. ‘We are hours away from our
homes. The doors are locked at night. People stand outside, watching. We can’t escape.’
Slide 10
Chaga could feel the tears in his eyes again. He just wanted to go home.
Chaga tried to sleep that night but he couldn’t. His dreams of bicycles and chocolate had
been replaced by bad dreams, and the bad dreams kept him awake until the morning.
The nightmares were bad, but Chaga’s new life was even worse. At six o’clock the next
morning, before the sun was even in the sky, the boys were forced to work.
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Slide 11
The boys carried heavy bags of cocoa beans on their backs, slowly walking across the
cocoa farm. They carried these bags all day, until their bodies couldn’t carry them anymore.
They had very little to eat.
Day after day, Chaga worked on the cocoa farm, his arms and legs aching from tiredness.
He slowly learned not to trip when carrying the bags, not to complain, and never to ask for
more food. That way nobody would shout at him.
Sometimes he thought he might not see his family ever again.
Slide 12
One day, when Chaga left the hut, he saw that the men who never smiled were busy over
the other side of the farm, dealing with somebody who was sick.
One of the boys looked up, saw the men were busy, and dropped his sack. He began to run.
The men looked around and saw him running. Before he could think, Chaga was running
too. It was his only chance to escape. So Chaga ran. He thought of his home and his family
waiting for him.
And Chaga ran.
He came to a road off the cocoa farm and saw a car. He saw the man in the car was a policeman. He stopped to tell him what had happened. The policeman took Chaga to a place
that was safe. He was given food to eat and clothes to wear. He told the policeman what
had happened on the farm and, because of him, the boys were set free.
Chaga was taken home to his family, who stood there with their arms open wide, smiling,
waiting for Chaga. His parents were there. His brothers and sisters were there. And his
whole village were there, waiting. There was nobody to tell him what to do anymore.
So Chaga ran.
He was home at last.