Four Africans who grew up in the US/Canada recently travelled together around Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to meet with grassroots organisations and ministries in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) - to figure out what is going on and what the mood is in the Sahel region. The Thomas Sankara Centre organised the delegation in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, together with the Coalition for the Elimination of Imperialism in Africa based in the diaspora.