School uniforms go on sale, Cuban style

School uniforms go on sale, Cuban style

HAVANA, Cuba - July 11 (Juan Carlos Linares Balmaseda / www.cubanet.org)
- Authorities have placed school uniforms on sale in Havana and in the
process have generated long lines and other peculiarities of the Cuban
system.

The press announced sales would start at selected stores July 10: two
items of clothing for students starting pre-school, one item for
students going into third, fifth, and eight grades, and two items for
those starting secondary school.

Sales will be dutifully recorded in the parents' ration booklet,
provided they presented the student's ID card, and the appropriate
documents attesting he or she attends a particular school and grade.

But the lines, that's where the Cuban system shines. In Diez de Octubre
municipality, at one of the four stores designated to participate in the
sale, a number of women, professionals to the waiting in line business,
started their operation on the previous Sunday. Displaying a talent for
capitalist free enterprise made possible by socialist scarcity, they
established a line and started allocating places in it, reserving the
best for themselves to sell when the store opened Monday at 10 in the
morning for 20, 25 and even 50 pesos.

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y06/jul06/17e1.htm