‘Far From Home’ Demands Attention to the Lost Boys of Saint-Louis

A simple phrase is repeated several times throughout Felicia Taylor’s devastating documentary short film, Far From Home. Young boys–some as young as five or six–are asked the question by a teacher figure in Saint-Louise, Senegal before they are beaten for not bringing enough money, or alms, back with them. Far From Home is told with intimate immediacy. This is a short documentary with a shockingly large scope.

Climate change is a huge threat in Saint-Louis, Senegal. Some of the first images of the doc show waves crashing on the shore, but someone explains that there used to be two villages close by. “They’ve disappeared,” one man says and another explains that rows of houses are at risk of collapse from the sea crashing into them. In the countryside, it doesn’t even rain causing hundreds of people to leave the area in a mass exodus.

Children come to the city with a Quranic teacher but without any real form of supervision, they have to beg to survive. Their teachers, or marabouts, make money by exploiting children to go out and beg for money. If they come back with nothing or not enough, they are beaten. Children, far from their parents and their homes, take to living in the streets in fear.

Halfway through the film, a glimmer of light comes in the form of Issa Kouyate, the founder of the Maison de la Gare, a non-government organization dedicated to helping talibé street children. Imagine being a child and being told repeatedly that you are only worth what you can bring back in terms of money. Some surely worry that any adult will be cause them physical pain but Kouyate warns that this loneliness will turn to anger and violence.

Taylor’s camera is right in the action so deeply that it’s shocking that no one questions its presence. We can feel the heat shining down on us as children wander aimlessly around the streets. Thoughts of home transform from a memory to a mirage. Some will never see that home again and some will create their own homes through more pain and resentment. In America, people brush off the potential effects of climate change, but the boys of Saint-Louis are suffering now.

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