Ah, school daze…

My house is calm. The air is still with that late-summer stagnancy. An August sun springs through the window blinds before it dies, disappearing below the horizon. It all feels too much like a yoga video, but then you hear it. A terrible, blood-curdling scream – surely Kill Bill must be on downstairs or something! Oh wait. It’s just me. Watching another back-to-school commercial.

Duh – duh – DUH!

You understand. It’s been the same thing all our lives. At the beginning of August those commercials start rudely popping our blissful summer bubbles. Get lost, two-for-ten binder inserts!

But lately, I’ve been trying to rethink school; it isn’t actually the torture device we try to block from memory during the summers – it’s a privilege, and a good one at that.

Several news agencies reported recently that Kimani Nganga Maruge has passed away. The elderly Kenyan held the world record for oldest student, having enrolled in primary school when he was eighty-four. He was denied education as a child, eventually making the decision to start school alongside two of his grandkids.

According to The Standard, Maruge is quoted as saying, "Kwa vile naishi peke yangu, nataka niwe nikisoma Bibilia nikiwa nyumbani na kuhesabu pesa (since I live alone, I want to be reading my Bible and know how to count money).”

I don’t think any of us quite understand what we owe to education. Without the basic skills of reading and writing, the world is a tough place to work in, live in, do anything in. Unfortunately school is not everywhere considered a right – but it is for you, and it is for me. And because of that, we’re given opportunities which are shut to millions elsewhere.

And when my alarm rings at 6:30 am on Monday morning, I’m going to remember that.