The gown is black, the hood purple and gold, the hijab the colour of the sky over Makindye. Behind her the Mercy Schools map is still on the glass, blue stars stuck to the pane. She has finished something. The children have not let her leave the porch.
That is the point of the photograph. A qualification at this house still belongs to the courtyard that raised it. Sandals in a pile. One Together on the mural. A child holding a doll at her knee.
Education here is not a distant bursary that ends at a certificate. It is a teacher who walks back through the same door, and a school small enough that the whole class still fits around her.
From the field
The photographs and films of this story.
Education
A gown at the Mercy Schools door
A Mercy Schools teacher stands in her graduation gown against the office glass — Africa map, blue stars, the house behind her. The children who stay in class grow into the adults who keep the house.
Education
Gown, porch, the whole school
The same graduate, on the Mercy School porch, buried in children. One Together on the mural. Sandals in a pile. A qualification that still belongs to the courtyard that raised her.