Yay! The holidays are here. Well, not mine, sadly, but whatever is in Kwezi’s interests excites me. I would do anything in her shoes. I mean, from this week until January, this little girl is free. Yes! Free to not wake up very early in the morning. Free not to be subjected to get out of bed when the nose is blocked and chest is heavy because she has a cold. Free not to eat lousy school food. Free not to take her afternoon naps on thin and crowded mattresses. But does she see the freedom that I am seeing? Of course not.

This morning, this little girl woke me up at about 6am. I don’t know how to even begin telling you how ‘sweet’ this sleep was. You know that kind of sleep where you are completely gone? Where being fully awake comes to you in slow motion? Yes, that one. The thing is either this girl doesn’t care or she is unaware of what a break means. You see, this morning I was dressing up for work and she run to her room and brought her uniform. She informed me that she wanted to get on her bus and she wanted to go to school.

I tried to explain but it seems that she does not really get it. I have come to realise that for Kwezi, the fun is not only about being in school, it’s all the other things especially the bus ride. I don’t know what really happens on that bus but whatever it is, it seems like fun.

Well, now that the holidays are here, what do we do when this excitement is over? How do I help my almost five-year-old girl to maximise these two months? What activities can I find in Kigali that can be fun? How do I navigate through this weather for someone who does not own a car? Those are the things that I need to figure out and share with you in the next few days.

What we are doing now is to keep warm, eat well and deal with the new bout of flu that Kwezi developed days ago. After that, we must figure out what exactly or who this holiday should be shared with.

Once we’ve figure that out, we will share with you. For now, Kwezi is soaking it all in. Eating everything, wreaking havoc and making us raise our voices.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com