The alarm clock rings early, it's hard to get up after weeks in which sleep stretches until long after the sun has risen. But this morning has a special magic, an emotion that lightens and displaces the embrace of the sheets to give way to another, much warmer and gratifying, one that envelops all of Cuba: the first day of school.
Families have been busy with books and uniforms, the hustle and bustle in schools has also begun much earlier, because nothing can tarnish this reunion, this day of joy and shared emotions, of new experiences after months of dedication.
There is a lot of effort behind the desks ready, the classrooms open, the schools waiting. Everything is a reflection of a country's concern for the future of its children, of the determination to make the roads to knowledge, values and ethics, which are also the roads to culture and full freedom, straighter.
Backpacks on their backs carry dreams, some still hand in hand with their parents, others, already with more confident steps climbing the stairs of the Alma Mater. They have the opportunity to grow, to forge their deepest desires with every effort, because the Homeland watches over them, because education is an inalienable principle of our work.
September always reminds us of the value of all that we have, of the vindication that one day happened for those who, otherwise, would never have had access to that supreme right that is education.
Today is a beautiful day, one that makes us proud and fills our hearts, because joy generates joy, and as we walk the streets and the hustle and bustle surrounds us, we understand that there are things that must, that have to be preserved; things that deserve any sacrifice, because they provide after the most immense joy, the one that only comes from the common good, from that which is built when all hands join hands.
Every beginning of the school year is a holiday, not because of a celebration expressly arranged for that day, but because the reasons that move a country at this opening are more than enough to declare it a holiday.
The first date of this new school term is already written on the blackboard. After it, others will follow, and each day will be both an achievement and a challenge. There is no more demanding and meticulous work than educating, because only patience and infinite love perform the miracle of guiding the character, of molding the new woman and the new man. Today schools are Cuba. Today Cuba, all of it, is a school.
