But if the competition strives on showing off the best backpack, the most original lunch box, or the latest tennis shoes on the international market… then, part of the path would be lost.

The schoolyear has just begun with many difficulties, and if on top of these almost inevitable given the situation the country is experiencing, some students and parents add a certain desire to stand out by having things, the outlook of school would be sadly overshadowed.

Days before the reopening of classrooms, two persons from the neighborhood exchanged without measuring the pitch of their voices, because for them, their conversation was about “the most normal thing”:

-But if you say that he took care of it, that it is well preserved, why are you going to
go to that expense, girl?

-But, how is she going to carry the same backpack as last year? My daughter is not going to
be less!

Perhaps the daughter did not care too much about carrying the same backpack, and it was
the mother who was trying hard and worrying. Or not; perhaps her little girl was worried about the issue, because the mistaken seed of believing that one was less when one had less had already sprouted in her.

In any case, finding the answer to that doubt is not the final issue. It should be a matter of attention and concern that more than one family and also more than one teenager are wearing themselves out to show off the objects they possess, as if having them made them shine... and win.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff