Ten-year-old Malki is too excited to stay in bed.
She gets up an hour before her two sisters and two brothers so she can scratch some bright red polish off her fingernails.
Today is her first day of school and she wants to be spotless.
But her siblings have to stay at home – her family can only afford to send them.
Six months ago, Sri Lanka was in the eye of the storm over its worst economic crisis since independence.
While peace has largely returned to the island state, the effects of mass unemployment and the dramatic price increases are now visible in many families.
Malki’s mother, Priyanthika, had to interrupt her children’s schooling so that they could make money selling fireworks.
Food prices in Sri Lanka hit record levels as inflation hit an all-time high of almost 95%.
Some days nobody in Malki’s family eats.
While school in Sri Lanka is free, no meals are provided. Add in the cost of uniforms and transportation, and education is a luxury Priyanthika can no longer afford.
She says she needs about 400 rupees a day ($1.09, 90 pence) for each child to get them back to school.
She sits in her one-bedroom house on the bed that everyone shares and wipes the tears from her face.
“All these kids used to go to school every day. I don’t have the money to send them there now,” she says.
Malki can go to school because her shoes and uniform still fit.
But her younger sister, Dulanjalee, lies in bed crying and upset that today is not her turn.
“My darling, don’t cry,” says Priyanthika. “I’ll try to take you with me tomorrow.”
As the sun rises, children heading to class in white cotton uniforms rush down dirt roads, hop on the backs of motorcycles or pile into tuk-tuks.
Across town, Prakrama Weerasinghe sighs wearily.
He is the principal of Kotahena Central Secondary College in Colombo and sees the economic hardship every day.
“When the school day starts, when we have morning meeting, kids tend to faint from hunger,” he says.
The government says it has started distributing rice to schools, but several schools contacted by the BBC said they have received no help.
Mr Weerasinghe says student attendance fell to 40% before he was forced to ask teachers to bring extra food to encourage students to return to class.
Joseph Stalin is Secretary General of the Ceylon Teachers Union.
He believes the government is willfully unaware of the increasing number of families who are forgoing education because of the costs.
“Our teachers are the ones who see the empty lunch boxes,” he says. “The real victims of this economic crisis are the children.”
“[The government] are not looking for an answer to this problem. It was seen and identified by UNICEF and others rather than the Sri Lankan government.”
UNICEF says people will find it harder to feed themselves in the coming months as inflation in the cost of staples like rice continues to cripple families.
It is expected that more children across the country will be forced to stop classes.
With the government seemingly unable to deal with the situation, charities have had to step in.
Samata Sarana is a Christian charity that has been helping the poorest of Colombo for three decades.
Today the dining hall is packed with hungry students from schools across the capital.
Although the charity is able to help around 200 children a day, it’s clear it’s struggling to keep up with demand.
“They give us food, buses home, they give us everything so we can study now,” says five-year-old Manoj while queuing for lunch with a group of friends.
When Malki comes home from her first day of school, she tells her mother how happy she was to see her friends again.
But she also tells her mother that she needs a new workbook and that her teachers are asking for extra money to buy materials for a school project.
Money that the family does not have.
“If we manage to find today’s food, we keep worrying about how we’ll find tomorrow’s food,” says Priyanthika.
“This has become our life.”
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