A day in the life and home of a child in a informal settlement

“Get up, get up now or else your going to be late for school.” These are the words I hear almost everyday and I hate them. I have to get up early to get dressed for school, sometimes I can have breakfast but that is only if my mom gets a raise or bonus. I have to deal with the hunger at school if I don’t get breakfast though, because walking to school really sucks the energy out of you, walking for a whole 45 minutes through the dirty and muddy road is such a pain! When you get there you have to go straight to class, I am always late because of the extremely long walk and I can’t wake up earlier because then I will be too tired to even get up.Some kids call me lazy, but trust me you will need all the energy you can get just so you can walk to school and back! When school starts I have to focus like a hawk, never taking my eyes off the dusty chalkboard my teachers use. There’s so much noise I can’t even hear my own thoughts that is the problem of being in a class of sixty five children. The only good part about school is recess where I can play soccer with my friends, I am known as the “Tackler” because I always tackle the other teams players. Sometimes I regret playing soccer, because when I have to walk home my feet ache and my legs can barely move. I wish people would just see me struggling and offer to drive me home, that would make life much more easier. Or if people see how dirty I am and offer to install a bath and pay for running water, it is a bit unrealistic but imagine how easier it would be if people had running water in their homes where they can shower or bath. I heard that some people actually have that type of stuff! Their children must be super clean, but I am over here in my room on my creaky, hard bed. Doing homework, which is extremely hard with just a pencil, when I make mistakes I can’t rub it out and then the teacher tells me she can’t understand what I am writing. I really struggle to even do my homework ,because I have to help my mom do washing or take my little sister to the toilet to make sure she doesn’t fall into the big hole. Sometimes I have to do homework under a street lamp because it gets too dark in our shack. The worst part of living in an informal settlement is having to walk through the dirt road. There could be sharp glass that could cut you and then it will get infected and all that stuff, you can even be playing in the rubbish on the edge of the dry road and you can also cut yourself there, then you will have to get out immediately. I’m glad we have the soccer club now, because I really didn’t want to rely on the rubbish to be my only entertainment. I am okay with how I have to live, I learned how to handle it, but I will always be waiting for a day where my family and I can be safe in a warm home with running water just like those people in the cars passing by. Oh how wonderful it would be.