Didi Cheeka, Nigeria

El Dorado is the story of a girl with a dream. The girl, Nafissa, dreams of a life different from the one her mother lives. Nafissa lives in the farming community of Za-kpota,where the average woman gives birth to an average 7 children, just across the border from Nigeria. For her, there must be more to life than cooking, washing, making babies. One day, when she is 13, her father, bargains with her dream for a new bicycle. He withdraws her from school and gives her to a seemingly respectable man of the community, the Patron – to work with chickens and gather eggs. Disguised as foodstuff, bound and gagged, she is smuggled alongside other children her age, some younger, but none older than 13, across the border into Nigeria. There are no chickens, no eggs. Just a sprawling outcrop of quartz-like rocks hand-mined by children with hammers and sledges.

Nafissa meets children like herself, but different in their needs; an extra plateful, survival, rather than a dream of freedom. Here, too, she meets the Foreman, a brute, an old soldier with fits of frenzy – and an appetite for little girls. At once he sets his sights on Nafissa. But Nafissa will not give in and a game of cat-and-mouse ensues between them, as he sets to work playing with her before the kill.

At the quarry, too, Nafissa meets Francois, a boy her age from her class whom she has a crush for. The Foreman breaks them apart and sets to work to torment Francois and break and Nafissa. But she will not give in.

Back in Za-kpota, confronted by the disappearance of her two prized students, Nafissa’s teacher, Ms Adimou goes in search of Nafissa and Francois, and the other lost children of the community. Her search leads her into the whispered secrets of the soft underbelly truth that begat a lost generation.

Each day the children stay at the quarry brings them closer to a certain end. Nafissa and Francois try to make the others see this. A small number of them make friends and decide to escape – so as not to end their days grinding stones, or in the shallow, unmarked graves near the quarry pits. The Foreman is defeated at his game. By Nafissa’s refusal to give in. He gives in – and assaults her in the bush, with the help of another boy, a traitor among the children. The children kill the Foreman. And the traitor in their midst. And then it is time to face their parents…