Months went by, and we were given our progress reports. I got very good marks on all the subjects. I was the number one learner in our grade, and in all the classes, but I was not even that proud of it because I thought it was just something normal. I really thought everyone was supposed to be like that, and that it was not really a big deal. At home, my parents were very proud of me, but even to them it was not something big because they already knew what I was capable of doing.

The situation at home was not changing, though. It was the same way it had been when I moved in. There was only one working parent, and he provided for all of us with the little that he got. I had one thing in mind that kept me going, though, and that was the dream that my aunt and I had written down of me being a medical doctor. I wrote it down again and put it in my file so I could read it every time I opened the file. It was really a motivation.

At that time, my aunt was still in the villages, but she was finishing her matric. I continued with the year, and I kept a constant behaviour and kept improving my marks. I received gifts from various teachers, and even though they were not big things I still appreciated them very much.

I also started being popular in school. Many learners knew about me, and that was one of the most amazing feelings ever. Many learners started loving to hang around me, and they even wanted to be friends with me. Even those who saw me as their competition. I, on the other hand, kept being the excellent learner.

The year finally ended, and I was happily progressed to the next grade. My aunt finally passed her matric, and she had to move away from the villages and come to the modern province too. She had to register with a university not far from our township, and she registered for a National Diploma in Correctional Services Management.

I was very happy that she had moved to the modern province too, even though she did not live with us at home. She moved in with her big sister until she moved in at the Varsity Residence.

As much as I was happy about all the new beginnings and achievements, something bad happened. That one job that my father had ended, and he had to also stay at home. There was nothing he could have done to prevent all of that from happening. I knew he was no longer working, but I was too young to understand the situation. I was only surprised when I no longer had the nice lunchbox packs for lunch at school, and the coins I used to have with me every day.

I thought it was maybe because I was no longer new at school, and when they wanted me to start going to the feeding scheme for food, I thought it was how things were done at the school. This new situation forced me to make new friends, ones who would go queue with me during lunch at the school feeding scheme. Making those friends was very easy, but what I had forgotten to consider was whether they were good students in class or not. I just had to pick them because they were also getting food from the school feeding scheme.

“Getting food from the feeding scheme” sounds so easy and simple, until you have to go and get them. There are very long queues there, with learners pushing each other, and some even fight for the food. Some of the days, we did not get food because there were big boys who kept getting food repeatedly while we are waiting in long queues. At that point, school was getting harder for me than it had been before.

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