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Second Wind

A Congolese schoolgirl in a white shirt and navy skirt, a bright sky-blue satchel on her back, walks past dark iron school-gate bars, one hand trailing along them, in a soft grey field between stepped sand-gold panels.

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

See it in your space

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.