In Europe and in the United States, we mostly know Africa through the news. News about natural disasters, about famine and about war. When we say Africa, some of us might think of elephants and national parcs, but most of us picture children with big hungry bellies and babies dying of aids. But what is it really like in black Africa? What have we seen since we crossed the Mauritanian border?

It is in St. Louis that we start meeting a lot of children, begging in the streets. They walk around with an empty can in their hands, often barefoot and wearing dirty, broken clothes. The young children walk around with snot on their faces and eyes full of dirt, the older ones look like they make their lifestyle into a culture, wearing patchwork pants and rasta hats.
They ask us for money, some of them ask for food. We explain to them that we do not have anything to give to them. We do not have a house ourselves, do not even know where to sleep tonight. Hospitably, a boy offers us to sleep with them. They sleep with the local Marabou.
It was in Nouakchot that we heard about the Marabou phenomenon for the first time. Parents who cannot support their children, send them off to a man who offers the children a place to sleep and some food. At night he teaches them from the Koran. In exchange, the children need to beg for money to give to the Marabou. In spite of the nice invitation, we considered it smarter to go find a hotel in St. Louis.

Dakar has everything one expects from a west african city. It is crowded with people, noisy and polluted. Here we meet Sidy, who works as a guard in our hotel. He is 45 years old, although I would have said he looks like a man in his thirties. Sidy`s dad disappeared when he was only two years old. His mom got together with another man and Sidy was brought up by his uncle. He went through school and learned to be a welder. Now his uncle considered him old enough to take care of his himself and he sent Sidy off, into the city. Sidy could not find a job. He slept on the beach. In the morning he washed himself in the sea and he walked to the city center. By helping people carrying their groceries, Sidy earned just enough not to starve to death. After a few months, he found a welder who could use him as a apprentice. This way he worked himself into a real job. For years he has been working as many shifts he can get, producing bedframes and tuna cans. Meanwhile he has gotten involved with a woman and has two children, but they are not married, neither do they live together.
Now Sidy is one of the older employees. He does not need to work shifts during the night or in the weekend anymore. His weekends he now uses to work as a guard in a small hotel. This is his time off, as the work is easy and most guests are laid back.
His children are living with his mother and his uncle in a village. They see as well their own mom as their dad regularly, but he lives in the city to earn a living and she cannot support her children financially. His dream is not to unite with the mother of his children, but to marry a french woman. However, in the year 2008 his goal is to provide his mother`s halfway built house with a bathroom.
Sidy is not average. He is an intelligent and well versed man. He works very hard to provide his children with a future. He detests parents who send their children to the city, to live with a Marabou. These parents do not take their responsibility of taking care of the children they produce, he says.
In Dakar even more children are hanging around, begging in the streets, than in St. Louis. Antoine and I decide to change our strategy. At first we had decided not to give anything to any child, because there are so many that we would soon be bankrupt. Now we give something to eat to one child per day. A banana, a piece of bread. No money because this will be spent on clothes and jewelry for the Marabou. One afternoon we eat a hamburger and fries at Ali Baba, a well known fast food restaurant in the center of Dakar. It is a big meal and we hardly eat any fries. Knowing that what is left behind will be thrown into a trash can, Antoine picks up the fries to give it to one of the street boys. Just outside the restaurant, one of the older Marabou boys clamps onto Antoine. ¨Please do not touch me¨ Antoine asks kindly, as the boy has his hands all over Antoine`s body. The boy becomes agressive and he tries to make Antoine give him money. Both Antoine and the boy`s tone of voice are agitated now. From a small distance I am looking at the situation. `Give me money`, the young man yells. Antoine explains to him that he cannot do that, but that we would give him some food if he wants some. ¨We don`t need food, we are not hungry¨ the boy answers. ¨Then why are you in the streets, begging?¨ The answer slams us in the face. ¨We are doing this for God¨. Highly disappointed we walk around the block and give our fries to a child, who happily calls his friends. With five boys, they finish off the food.

A French family has invited us to spend the night with them, on the coast of Senegal. They built their house (and swimming pool, VERY IMPORTANT when it is this hot) and moved here definitively. Like all toubabs here (white men) they have a guard. The family tells us the guard has twenty two children, with three wives. Next morning we meet the guard. He looks no older than 25.

In The Gambia, children are not begging, no, they are demanding presents. We tell them that we do not carry presents with us, but they do not seem to understand. Slightly agitated we cycle from village to village. At some point, a boy on a bike catches up with us and later another one. We talk to them in English, as this is their second language. Both are twelve and they go to school together. One of them is an orphan. He lives with his uncle. As we bike towards the ferry in Barra, a taxi drives by and the boy waves at him. A very young man drives this cab and he introduces himself as the boy`s uncle. He was probably much younger than I. However, he had the responsibility for two families.
A woman in The Gambia, whose husband took off when her youngest child was not even two years old, works in a campground for 20 euros per month. She works and her brother works. Together they can barely support their families, including their parents.

Here in Ziguinchor we see more children `from the Marabou`. We have been told that they are beaten if, at night, they do not show up with enough money. Here we see it happening twice. An older boy, actually still a child himself, beats on the heads of the small ones with a long, thin piece of bamboo. When he notices that we are watching, he chases the kids around the corner in order to continue in more privacy. This is awfull.

The incredibly low wages make us understand that it is hard to feed your children. However, we cannot understand why people have so many children. Their philosophy seems to be that more children increases the chance for one of them to succeed in life. This is not said out loud, because of course it is either God or Allah that says that every single child is welcome in this world. Welcome to this shity world, where you have to share your parent`s attention with 21 brothers and sisters, where you cannot develop into the person you want to be because your family does not have the means, where you have to be hungry and in the worst case will be sent to someone who claims to be a good Marabou. Welcome to this world.