A long walk to school.

The morning drive to school always brings back memories. First, I never wanted to wake up and go to school. Never been an early bird at all.  Since kindergarden I would hide under my bed when it was time to leave.  I ran out of hiding places. I did not want to go to school. Period. I would much rather stay at home and watch Forrest Gump or Sound of Music.  My mother sometimes took us to school in my older brother’s red “volla”. My other brother who was in grade 12 ( I was in grade 1 then)  would refuse to be dropped off  in the “volla” , so my mother had to drop him off a few meters away so that he can walk. I would exchange my car for a “volla” any day though. The best driving trip to school was when I was 9. I got motion sickness on the way and left my Coco pops on the dashboard which left a huge smile on my face because that meant no school for “sussie”.   A few years later we moved right across the school, well in the same street as the primary and high school, so driving turned into walking. During winter my mom would sometimes drop me off. I think it must have looked extremely strange dropping your kid off at school if you lived right across it.

For a Nomorebluemonday’s trip, we decided to go to Johannesburg city at 05:30 am to capture how the city comes alive. When the alarm went of I could not wait to get out of bed, haha not like school days. When you are turning a blue Monday in to a yellow picture taking one I will wake up anytime.

 It was a bit daunting at first, as most of you probably know what reputation one of my favourite cities  has. The air was freezing cold, the sky was grey and there were bits of golden rays of sunshine, reflecting off the buildings. Little children running in one direction and their parents going in the other direction.   Most parents work  a great distance from the city and thus has to catch a bus in the early hours. The first thing that came to my attention was how early the little ones were up and walking to school or rather had to get up to catch a taxi or a bus, so that they ‘re not late. What also came to my attention was how many of the kids were walking alone. Some were walking with older siblings and some kindergarden little ones were completely alone with a backpack and a brave little smile. Only some of them were lucky enough to have a mom or a dad with them to give a goodbye kiss at the school’s gate. Let alone a mom who drops them of because of the cold weather.   They were very brave I Thought. I would never want to walk alone in the city.  I really admired their discipline. I do not know if I had to walk such a long distance if I would maybe decide to fake a sick day :)

One girl was crying so much the saliva was dripping on her old jersey. I asked her, “what is wrong?”, but she kept crying. One boy told me that her older sister beat her. I could see that school was the last thing on her mind and my prep talk made no difference at all. She was crying as if there were no tomorrow. When I ask if I could take a picture of her, she wiped away the tears and jumped in the air. I am glad I could have brought a smile to her face, and I thought how wonderful it would be if I can bring a smile to more then one sad face. 

So for the next early morning trip we are going to give out new lunch boxes with snacks.  We do not want any donations, we want you to join us and bring a cool lunch box with a treat you love. It might be extremely cold, you have to get up very early before work, but I promise you, you will definitely not have a blue Monday if you make someone else’s one, awesome. Lets make some kids long walk or "wait"  to school a little bit cooler. 

Email us at nomorebluemondays22@gmail.com and we will arrange a date!