Looking tired and hungry, Bouba and Moussa Cisse, brothers aged 5 and 7 respectively, were begging recently near the Liberté Six street market in Dakar.Hailing from the Senegal’s southern region of Kolda, they aren’t the only ones who have come to the country’s capital to earn a living on the street. But they are part of a particular community of mendicants known as talibés. The money they collect on the street goes to their Quranic instructors, known as marabouts, in exchange for teaching, food and housing.
