Obdulio, an 11-year-old Afro-Uruguayan boy, can neither read nor write and lives with his sisters and grandmother and helps support them by selling newspapers - One evening, he discovers that the night watchman at the newspaper is a magical Maestro, who introduces him to the power of literacy and the meaning of life - Against the backdrop of Uruguay's provocatively stimulating carnival, the Maestro teaches Obdulio about life through the lyrics of the Murgas, the songs of the carnival.