A Difficult Month for Cuban Parents
HAVANA TIMES – September marks the return to classes. The beginning of an authentic torture for many Cuban parents. Children’s backpacks are filled with books, notebooks, and school supplies; ours with worries, sacrifices, and impossible expenses. Every year the story repeats itself, a loop that seems to have no end.
When my daughter started school, I discovered that aside from accompanying her in her learning, I would also have to manage the resources needed for her education—becoming a carpenter, painter, and decorator.
It is out of parents’ pockets that repairs at schools for broken desks, cleaning supplies, wall paint, and mural decorations come. The school should be a safe haven for learning, but it has been transformed into a collective survival project.
Homework is supposed to be exercises for children to reinforce what they have learned. Instead, they become tests for the parents. Textbooks are in bad condition, incomplete, torn, and outdated. Since the requested information is rarely found in them, it is necessary to search on Google.
Then the odyssey begins: the connection is terrible, data costs “an arm and a leg,” and then one has to print. The assignment has to look “nice,” with images in the annexes, and each printed page costs about 50 pesos if it’s only text. A simple school exercise turns into a logistical nightmare.
But things get more complicated if the child studies in a Pre-University Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE), as in my case. There, the requirements rise to another level: socks must be white and reach the knees, uniforms impeccable, shoes black and in good condition. Four weeks into this school year, 10th graders still don’t have uniforms. They are authorized to wear civilian clothes, but there are also rules regulating the type of clothing they may use.
Since my daughter doesn’t have enough clothes for boarding school, my mother has had to dust off her needles to remodel blouses and pants. Luckily, we can count on her talent, which, despite the years, hasn’t lost its strength, she still works magic with a sewing machine.
Every time the phone rings and I see my daughter’s number, my heart tightens. The phone is a constant reminder of the weight I carry. The phrase “Mom, I need you to bring me on Sunday…” always brings a new worry behind the ellipsis. It always means an expense, a sacrifice, a race against time.
I’ve survived the first few weeks; I have no idea how I’ll endure until the end of the school year. And yet, I don’t give up. I understand that in this country, a degree no longer holds value. But I am one of those who believes that knowledge is a treasure. Besides, she deserves to learn, she deserves to fight for a different future.
The only thing that keeps us standing is hope, faith that one day studying will truly be a doorway to tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll keep carrying, September after September, the heaviest backpack of all—the one filled with Cuban reality.