Hajja Sara Ammal Matriculation Higher Secondary School

Down here in Vadakarai, life moves at its own pace. Hajja Sara Ammal Matriculation Higher Secondary School sits right on the Main Road in Tharangambadi. If you walk outside, you can feel the air from the coast. Most of the kids come from around here, walking or taking the bus. The building has been here for years, and you can see it on the walls and the floors. We spend a lot of time just keeping things running. Some days the fans work better than others. It's a school for the local community, plain and simple. We have the younger kids in one section and the older ones preparing for their big exams in another. The teachers are mostly local folks who have been here a long time. We don't have a lot of bells and whistles. It’s just desks, books, and plenty of homework. During the breaks, the playground gets really noisy, which is fine because it means the kids are actually enjoying themselves. We deal with the usual stuff like broken chairs or missing chalk. Sometimes the power goes out and we just have to open the windows wider. It’s a bit cramped when everyone is inside at once, but we make it work. We aren't trying to be anything fancy. We just provide a place for the kids to learn their subjects and hopefully pass their tests at the end of the year. It's a lot of work but someone has to do it.