Tired of being turned away from the doors of banks, worried about being more independent from the powerful Malian Textile Company, the farmers growing cotton in the region of Koutiala had the idea of starting their own bank. A sort of collective granary where they would store money just as they had done with millet and sorghum to face troubled times together. From their creation, the Savings and Loan banks were called : Kafo Jiginew. In Bambara, this means, the union of granaries. The story started ten years ago. At the beginning, nobody believed that these strange huts installed in the middle of the brush to collect wrinkled bills from villagers who could barely count would survive. The strong motivation of its founders, reinforced by the steady advice of French bankers from the Credit Cooperative enabled an utopian dream to become reality. Six years of good cotton harvests also contributed to its success. This white gold weighs its own weight in the new safes of the Kafo Jiginew. Today Kafo Jiginew is worth 8 billion CFA francs, employs 110 people, has 100,000 members, finances a large part of the economy of Koutiala and even lends money to the powerful Malian Textile Company which is in now in crisis. When we asked what is behind a success which is as spectacular as it is rapid, the founders of Kafo Jiginew are adamant. The essential, for them, was to know how to meld traditional African solidarity with the modern, occidental mutualist ideal. This story deserves to be told… because it is a symbol of an Africa at a crossroads, too often hidden behind images of suffering. Of an Africa which has made a leap in time. Of an Africa which blends the hammering of pestles and the sound of a computer keyboard clicking away, the tam-tam and the internet.