Back to School… With a Pencil
by Kris Riendeau
Back-to-school time in the Valley: even if you’re not flying around buying paper, binders, coloured pencils and calculators for yourself or your kids, you can’t miss the message. Back to school is equated with back to shopping, whether it’s for clothing, lunch kits and backpacks, or the seemingly endless array of school supplies. The marketing starts in early August, and reaches full consumer frenzy just before the Labour Day weekend.
Back-to-school time in Nicaragua: in one of the poorest nations in the Americas, where 45% of the population makes less than $1 a day and the unemployment / underemployment rate sits at over 50%, many families approach the onset of school with trepidation. Some choose not to send their children at all, out of a sense of shame that they cannot provide even the barest of basics: pencils and paper. Some children make it to the classroom, but act out and distract classmates and teachers because they essentially have nothing to do — or at least nothing to write with or upon.
