The Unsung Heroine

No, I'm not writing about me, even though I often feel like the Behind the Scenes Queen of the Washing Machine. My topic today has to do with the opening of government schools in the Western Province tomorrow.


Most mothers I know are harassed, getting last minute school uniforms, shoes and stationery and are standing as we speak at their kitchen counters making the first of many packed lunches for the year. They are already groaning at the prospect of facing all the school traffic and the inevitable snarl up in the car park. (There's a future topic for discussion! All you 4x4 moms who sit parked in the Drop and Go zone reading your books watch out!!)

In the meanwhile my weekly char, an exceptionally diligent and pleasant woman, will be rising at 4am to accompany her 13 year old daughter by train and taxi from Khayelitsha to her new school in Milnerton, where she will begin high school. It will be a very difficult year for both of them, as the distance from home to school is too great to travel daily, so her daughter will be boarding with her aunt, at a time when a girl most needs her mother. Instead of bemoaning this fate, Agnes is grateful that she has secured a place at a school for her daughter which she deems to be superior to any schools in Khayelitsha, and they are prepared to make the sacrifice.


Agnes has somehow managed to take her daughter for interviews and buy her books and new school uniform, travelling great distances on many modes of public transport at great expense to achieve this dream of a better education. I frankly don't know how she's managed to do it all, as always with a smile and great pride and dignity. As more fortunate mothers jump into their cars to take their offspring to school, having paid for the necessary school requisites with convenient credit cards, I hope we all pause for thought as mother and daughter leave their shack in search this dream.


I salute you Agnes, and wish your daughter every success for her forthcoming school career.