MAMAN BY ME IN 2006.
( the first photo I took in my life. )
SANS ŒILLET.
Many people in France live in hotels…
You might think it’s a good life, the way I’ve put it.
But today I’m not here to talk about 5-star hotels.
Many people don’t realize it and walk past hotels they probably think are unoccupied or abandoned.
But when you walk through the entrance, you instantly hear children’s voices mixed with the smell of food.
Families of 3, 4, 5, or even 6 people living in 10m² rooms, with no kitchen and, for the lucky ones, only a microwave. And sometimes shared showers.
A nice flat shared with cockroaches and mice, because they’re the main residents of every room in this kind of hotel.
First things first, I’m here to talk to you about this subject, as I lived there for many years.
My town has one.
Now, I walk past it almost every day as if I’d never lived there.
Over the years, I’ve come to forget that people actually live there. One day, I decided to go back to see how things had changed, and, thanks to that, I met a family.
That’s when I came up with the idea of showing what children feel and experience during this “hotel” life.
L’HÔTEL. 2023
Integration into one of these establishments ishandled by social services and Samu.
If you are homeless, you can be placed in a hostel or hotel by contacting social services. Depending on your situation, you may be guaranteed a room, especially if you are a family.
The managers of these establishments are paid.
Payment is covered by the département.
When I lived there with my family, the cost was around €2,000 per family.
The internal regulations of the various establishments may vary, but one rule binds them all together:
no cooking in the rooms, meaning no hot food.
FAMILY SOUL. 2022 & 2023
The family I met, whom I’ll call the “Soul” family, comes from the Ivory Coast and has been living in France for five years now. It consists of two parents and four children (aged 2, 4, 13, and 15).
They follow the classic pattern of parents wanting the best for their children, having left everything behind and sacrificed everything to give them a better life.
But what is a better life?
For the youngest children, it isn’t a problem, because at 2 or 4, life is all about play. But at 13 and 15, you’re already starting to build your own life.
I had the chance to talk to the 13-year-old boy. He didn’t speak much to me, because he’s afraid—afraid that people will find out who he is, afraid of reprisals, afraid that this exposure will be publicized in the media and tarnish his image with his classmates. But I know that when he grows up, all these fears will fade, because nothing will matter except his own vision of himself.
I had the pleasure of spending quite a bit of time with the 15-year-old girl, who doesn’t yet know what she wants to do with her life. She has a lot of desires and is a bit scattered, but sooner or later, she’ll find what she’s passionate about. For now, she goes out a lot to avoid staying at home, and since she’s not attending school this year, she has a lot of free time, but no friends. However, she has a very strong bond with her mother, and they are very close.
Both the 13-year-old boy and the 15-year-old girl refused to let me publish their photos.
COMMUNS WASHROOMS. 2022
I lived in these establishments from the age of 6 to 13.
It was a period of my life marked by shame.
From a very young age, I had to protect myself, so I started lying at school, in my extracurricular activities, and to anyone I came across. Because one of the first questions you get when you meet someone is, “Where do you live?”—especially back then (2006).
What answer could I give to the question, “Do you live in a house or an apartment?” At 6 years old, you don’t have the maturity to tell yourself that it’s nothing to be ashamed of, because at that age, and especially for children, it’s a disgrace.
Living with this shame means walking around the neighborhood five times before going home for fear of being seen, and staying outside after school for an hour to make sure all your classmates are gone.
It also means being seen in front of your house, pretending to wait for someone or the bus. Upon reflection, it was a lot of effort for so little result, because I was still being harassed because of my skin color.
Not a day went by without someone calling me a “monkey,” “dirty black,” and so on. And of course, always specifying the race of the monkey (I was usually a gorilla, haha).
What I’ve learned is that putting in so much effort to be accepted isn’t worth it, because if they’ve decided you don’t belong, you never will.
D & M. 2022
I was alone both at school and at home, because my mother worked so much. Then my two little brothers were born, but I still felt just as alone. To tell the truth, I didn't feel at home in this insalubrious place, and at school, I was rejected by everyone. Inside and out, I didn't fit in.
One day at school, a big altercation broke out in the morning. Nobody wanted to play with me, and they insulted me at every word I uttered. It was getting very hard for me, so I told the teacher about it. He reprimanded the pupils and my day became a living hell for the first time. In one morning, I suffered both physical and verbal abuse. It was the first time I'd been hit, I was 8 years old. I went home and all I wanted to do was die.
I constantly wondered why no one loved me. But over time, I realized that the only love I needed was from the people I loved, and that I didn't have to look for love from others.
I’m talking about all of this to put it into context. Most children living in hotels do not only face the living conditions of these spaces. The feelings of children are very often put aside from these situations.
MY BROTHERS AND I IN 2007.
Unfortunately, the child also faces constant pressure from his side, pressure at the level of education and involuntarily parents destroy the childhood of children (or at least the forge) by putting them in mind that the future of the family is based on their academic success. They become «the future».
Every bad note is automatically pointed at.
"So you want to stay here with the cockroaches?" "My life is already made. It's yours you're building now." "Do you know what we've sacrificed to get you here?" "You have to try 5 times harder than the others".
Which is true, but it's also very hard to hear, practically every day.
But as you grow older, you realize that there's also an element of fear on the parents' side, because they've put a lot of effort into trying to give their children a life that will allow them to "succeed" in their own.
And most parents will always be worried about their children.
THE SOUL FAMILY SHOWER. 2022
Sincerely, the only feeling I really remember and felt practically every day was shame.
The shame of being in that place, the shame of not being able to invite anyone (even though I didn't have anyone to invite, ha ha), the shame of having to lie so as not to suffer more mockery than I already have, the shame of seeing almost only people who looked like me in those establishments, the shame of being so poor that I couldn't change that situation, the shame of disappointing my mother and finally the shame of myself.
Feeling dirty, because you live in a dirty place. It shapes your mind, you put yourself down and don't think you deserve anything. And by not seeing any "models of success" around you, you end up telling yourself that it's normal if you're there, because it’s your place to be. When I was growing up, I really thought that it was a must for all black families.
Although childhood is difficult in this kind of place, when you grow up, you get a kind of satisfaction if you succeed in what you do. In this way, you will have taken your revenge on the life that was given to you by having built your own.
And then you can start treating yourself to 5-star hotels.
THE SOUL FAMILY. 2022
Still, I'd like to express my admiration for the two sisters who raised me.
I focused a lot on the child's feelings, because that's what I was when I lived there, but adults make unimaginable sacrifices to preserve their children.
Every little detail, like going to eat ice cream, going to the park, are already a way out of this prison. Every moment of happiness remains engraved in the mind.
They are courageous women, who left their country of origin, left their family, left the «comfort» in which they were, because they saw greater for their futures, and that of their future family.
When I was younger, I didn't see any models of success around me because I didn't know where to look. But above all, I didn't know what success was. Now that I understand, I just have to turn my head to see it.
They have saved my life and certainly many times.
As a child, I was very envious, and I didn’t understand why others had more than I had, and again, I realize that I already had everything I needed.
So thank you mom for this education and courage I inherited!
THE WOMENS OF MY LIFE.
