A twelve-year-old African boy named Modou is orphaned when his family dies from AIDS. He leaves his remote village in the Sahel, attaches himself to an African holy man and becomes a beggar in the city. The street smarts he thus gains enable him to survive when he is separated from his mentor. Modou befriends another orphaned boy, Umaru, and together they cope with the trials of street life: abuse, hunger, police brutality and inept interventions by social agencies.