I Couldn't Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us. John Gibler

I said to myself, “This is so I can get ahead,” so that one day my family can say, “I’m proud of you for what you have achieved. Big or small, what you have achieved is important.”

      JUAN PÉREZ, 25, FRESHMAN. The majority of students here are the sons of campesinos. Where I come from we only have an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. We don’t have any other options for study or pursuing a career, my small town is a bit more fucked-over than other places. I decided to come to this school, to study, to be someone, to go back to my town and be a teacher there, and give classes to the kids. Since in my town we all speak Me’phaa, we want a teacher who speaks Me’phaa. That’s the vision I have for myself.

      COYUCO BARRIENTOS, 21, FRESHMAN. My father separated from my mother when I was about five years old. We lived in the mountains. But my mom, my sister, and I went to live with my grandparents then, nearer to the town center. My mom would leave us to go to work. We would stay with my grandmother, because my grandfather worked all day too, coming back at night, or if not, at the end of the week. So I became quite independent. By the time I came here, I wasn’t speaking to my father, it had been some time since we fought. Before coming here I had thought about joining the marines to pay for my studies and support my family. But it didn’t work out. I was almost accepted and at that point didn’t have any other options. I had studied tourism in Acapulco, but without any support. Around that time I had fought with my mom and my sister and was on my own. I had to work. I stopped studying and my cousin told me that if I wanted, I should come study here, that there was nothing else that could help me.

      And so this became . . . like a light of hope, because I wanted to keep studying. I didn’t want to get stuck just working, so I took his advice. And it turned out that my cousin—he’s from Zihuatanejo, Daniel Solís—also was going to come take the entrance exam. So we arranged to meet up and we came. Before that, I took any job I could find. I helped my uncles to repair and clean refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners. I made very little, but enough to get by. After that I went to look for more work and found an automobile body and paint shop. I showed up there knowing nothing, but started to learn just by watching. I got the hang of it quickly. The boss began to trust me and to give me jobs, simple ones that I could handle. And I told him that I needed to work to put together enough money to come and take the entrance exam. I needed to pay the travel costs and have something for whatever I’d need here. He understood and gave me a hand. I worked with him for about a month and a half, up until the day when I had to come here.

      ANDRÉS HERNÁNDEZ, 21, FRESHMAN. I have a goal, which is to become a teacher, an educator. I came here with that objective, to go back and give classes in my community, which is quite remote, a community of about 200 people. The teachers who sometimes go there, I don’t know if it’s because of the heat or the food, but they leave after only a little while. They don’t even last half a year before requesting a change. That’s why I came here. I’m here with that goal: to be able to go back to my community and give classes, to be an educator there.

      EDGAR ANDRÉS VARGAS, 20, JUNIOR. When we were in our third year of high school a number of kids started talking about where they wanted to study. The only teachers college that we had heard of was Tenería, in the State of Mexico. But my cousin, Óliver, told me that there was a teachers college like Tenería in Guerrero. But to tell you the truth, I was never inspired to go to a teachers college. My cousin told me that his uncle studied at the teachers college in Guerrero and that it was good. So he said we should go, he was trying to convince me, but I didn’t really want to, in all honesty. He went to the school to begin the admissions process and told me all about it, that I should apply as well. On the very last day I made up my mind. I left my town around two in the morning. I went with my father, because the school is quite far away. My cousin told me more or less how to get there.

      I started the admissions process on the last day. I was one of the very last to apply. I walked around the college and I started to like it. I’m really close to my cousin; we’ve been friends since elementary school and we were excited to take the exam. Once I saw the place, the murals and everything, I was more interested and decided to take the exam.

      JOSÉ ARMANDO, 20, FRESHMAN. This is the reason we come study at Ayotzinapa: because we are the sons of campesinos. We don’t have the resources to study at another school. And this school is committed to social struggle; it’s a school where we learn the values to keep fighting and create a better future, to support our families. And what does the government do? It kills students.

      MIGUEL ALCOCER, 20, FRESHMAN. I came, really, due to a lack of money. I stopped studying for two years for that same reason: I didn’t have any money. I wanted to keep studying but my parents didn’t have more money to give me and there weren’t any savings. I already knew about this school and wanted to come, but it wasn’t until 2014 that I made up my mind. So I told my parents that I was going to come, and they said okay. You know, it was the only option, economically, because here you don’t pay anything for food or lodging. Here the school provides everything, and that’s why I wanted to come here.

      JORGE HERNÁNDEZ ESPINOSA, 20, FRESHMAN. At the beginning, during the trial week, honestly, we didn’t like it. We asked ourselves: “Why do they do this to us if we just want to study?” But truthfully, during that experience you start to value certain things. You learn to appreciate everything from your family, meals, your compañeros, your friends, everything, everything. Because you hit a point where you get tired and say to yourself, “I can’t do this anymore; I’m going home.” But then you say, “I’ll get home and what will I tell my parents? Here I am, I couldn’t do it; I gave up, I couldn’t pass the trial week?” And that’s how you find courage inside yourself, and you think about your family and think: “I don’t want to let my family down; I want to make them proud; I want to go home and be able to tell them: I made it.”

      It’s really true, the trial week is hard. We work; they make us do all the work of a campesino, because we are campesinos. But, for example, the work that a campesino does in a month, we do that in a week. We multiply the work.

      There are times when we don’t drink water, when we don’t eat. It’s true and it’s hard. But at the same time, once you’ve been there at the college for two or three days during the trial week, you say to yourself: “I made it two days, just five more to go. I’m going to stick it out.” And you do.

      SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. The trial week is tough. It was really kind of grueling. But, you know, that’s how it is here, that’s how they do it every year. They have you doing exercise, doing farm work, clearing brush and weeds from the fields, going out to help los tíos in their fields. It’s pretty exhausting, and only those who make it through the trial week get admitted. We helped each other out, though. If some of us couldn’t run anymore, the organizers would encourage us.

      “Help each other out,” they would say, “help each other; never leave a compa alone, no one should ever get left behind; when you’re finished running, there should be no one left behind.”

      If one of us couldn’t go on, we all had to stop and wait, or try to help him out by carrying him, but no one could be left on their own. That’s where we start building a sense of being compañeros within the group, always staying together, never leaving anyone behind, helping each other out. That’s where the compañerismo begins. We make deep friendships during the trial week. We become best friends during that experience with compañeros we didn’t know before.

      EDGAR ANDRÉS VARGAS, 20, JUNIOR. On the first day they took us all into the auditorium. The students from the committee welcomed us, more or less, told us some stuff and then let us out early. We went to rest. Around four in the morning some of the students from the sports club showed up kicking our doors, shouting. In that situation, you wake up in a flash. They told us to be out on the soccer field in five minutes, or like two minutes. Since we had heard a bit about the trial week, we had an idea of what was about to happen. They made us do exercises and then run. They took us running. This was kind of complicated for me since I used to have asthma and always used an inhaler.