Up North

I've been in Mozambique the last couple of days, just on holiday with a few friends. We drove up to Ponta from Durban, and there on the stretch of road after Hluhluwe in rural KwaZulu Natal, my road rage shifted from its usual tingle to a full-blown fireworks display. It wasn't the cars, no-no, it was the speed bumps. One set after another. It was 6:30am, we'd been driving since 3am and I was exhausted, so kilometres of speed bumps: close to the last thing I wanted to experience at that moment in my life. I was about to explode out of my head, and then, we started seeing the kids. Neatly uniformed little people, walking down the road in bundles of two and three. Over the course of an hour, we must have driven past hundreds of kids in their bright school uniforms, most without schools bags; an unnecessary expense I suppose.

"Shoh, it's early though."
"Ya, I wonder where they're walking from."
Bottles and I can do the math: if school starts at 8am, maybe 7:30am, these kids are spending at least an hour walking to school.

We drive past some of the schools. We know that they're schools because they have signs outside, the school name above the Coca-Cola logo. There's a lot of sand, not so many windows. Not so many cars either, even after 7:30, when you'd expect the teachers to be at school. Another friend, sitting in the backseat, articulates what we're all thinking: "Why do the kids even bother going?"
Rural KZN. We drive past the "Big Farmer" kiosk, cement bricks.
"What else is there to do?" I reply.

Ponta is also rural. Rural and poor. We went out to a bar called Fernando's, got into a conversation with some guys from Pretoria. The one boytch told me that "us" Afrikaners need to stand together to protect the Boer culture. That's nice, white supremacy is alive and well there on the other side of my Raspberry and Rum. I didn't know where to start, so I just stopped talking to him. I forget, very often, that the bubble in which I live--where big words like equality, freedom, human dignity and the rest of the constitutional Brady Bunch, are you know, just assumed--is just that: a bubble.

Other than its visitors, Ponta is great. Postcard beaches, warm water, tropical ambience and kickass peri-peri and prego chicken according to Bottles.

Yesterday was back to work. My friend, a primary school teacher in Soweto, messaged last night to say that not one of her Grade 6 students passed their ANAs (Annual National Assessments). Miss Jay, as her kids call her, feels less than inspired. So do I to be honest. And I'm an annoyingly optimistic idealist most of the time.

Holiday: it's meant to be good for the soul right?