Second Wind

Children in wet school uniforms walk through a rain-soaked street toward a lit iron gate at dusk.

Tired is not the same as stopped. Some days you find out how much further the body was always willing to go.

School began anyway.

On September 1, 2026, in Bunia, in DR Congo’s Ituri province, the year opened on schedule — even with the region facing one of the fastest-growing Ebola outbreaks on record, alongside conflict and a threatened teachers’ strike. The risk was visible from the first step through the gate. Nobody pretended otherwise. They moved forward with it anyway.

I didn’t set out to document the outbreak. What stayed with me was a body that keeps moving long after it has every reason to stop.