School on Hold While Mom Scrapes By

Le Blog du Congolais shares (FR) the touching story of Carine, a 22 year-old from the DRC with an infectious smile who sells omelettes and doughnuts during school hours:

Today I don’t feel like eating Carine’s omelettes. I can’t fathom why a rather pretty young woman is selling omelettes and doughnuts all day instead of seeking a brighter future. She wants to know why I’m not having anything and I want to know why she isn’t in school. “Because of hard times, she explains, this year Mom decided to send my sister who is in 12th grade and my younger brother and sister … to school. Next year, if Mom can afford it, my brother and I will go.” And if Mom can’t afford school next year? Well, the brother will go and Carine will wait again. She’ll then be 23, the age to be graduating college, but instead she’ll attend 8th grade. Carine’s mom explains to blogger Tony Katombe that her employer, a Congolese airline, hasn’t paid her in several months. She likens her solution to delestage a term used to describe the government’s rationing of electricity by delivering it to different neighborhoods every night. Apparently, Congolese families going through tough times practice delestage when it comes to food rationing as well: boys eat on even days while girls eat on uneven days.

 The Congalese Blog

thanks to Global Voices