Before School

“A single expression can hold everything a life will become.

A young girl in a school uniform stands on a red dirt road at dawn. She is looking forward. The road stretches in both directions. Behind her is everything her family has already survived. Ahead of her is a world that has not yet decided what to give her.

And yet — look at her face. She has already decided. Not everyone chooses what she is choosing, and no one else needs to notice. The decision is between her and the morning.

This photograph isn’t about childhood.

It’s about the moments in your own life when you set your face toward something no one had promised you.

When did you last make a private decision to keep walking — and who would recognise that decision in you now, if they looked closely enough?”