Giovanni Galindo, from an early age, wanted to be an agricultural engineer, to have scientific knowledge about tilling and sowing the land. He could have been if he had understood mathematics but he did not.

After that, he wanted to be a rural teacher as his father and sister. From his father, he learned that one becomes a teacher, not because of the salary, he knew that well, as there was little money in his family, but for the love of it and the courage to do it. Rural teachers are needed in order to overcome the poisoning sap of ignorance in the rural communities.

His house was in Tierra Caliente, Morelos that is 5 hours away from Ayotzinapa but he decided to apply to Raúl Isidro Burgos because it was those classrooms that had educated his father, Lucio Cabañas, 30 years ago. The first day of school he learned that the symbol of the Normal Rural is a turtle. It is there in the crest, surrounded by two green brushes with an open book on top. Ayotzinapa is a derivative of ayotl that means turtle. We know the fable about the turtle: it wins a race with the hare, who is full of itself, by being persistent.

In the school everyone felt like seeds in a dry land, fighting to germinate and grow. Before the school experience, they had wanted us to be asleep, always quiet, Giovanni and all his turtle-brothers. The invisibles, now determined, are as crazy as the ayotl.

He was disappeared at night without witnesses in a coward act. They did not return the bodies to the families for the wake. His mother is searching for him and she said loudly that they have robbed her of everything, even the sense of fear. She is now on the street shouting for justice. A crowd fills the avenues all over the world and supports his mother. People he never met read all our names, shout his name Giovanni Galindes Guerrero along with the others. FORTY-THREE of us are not heard anymore.

'How can we win the race if they don't let my turtle-brothers run?'

Text belongs to: Proyecto Diez 43: The life behinds each name (translated by Juan C Gallardo)

De chico quería ser ingeniero agrónomo, conocer la ciencia detrás del arado, de la siembra, de la tierra. Pude ser, se me daban bien las matemáticas, pero no fui. Después supe que quería ser maestro rural, como mi padre y mi hermana. A mi padre le aprendí que de maestro no se mete uno por el dinero —que siempre escaseó en casa— sino por gusto, por coraje. Porque los maestros rurales hacemos falta para evitar que la savia de la ignorancia envenene a nuestra gente.

Yo tuve mi casa allá en Tierra Caliente, en Morelos. Cinco horas la separan de Ayotzinapa, pero yo vine a la Raúl Isidro Burgos porque de estas mismas aulas salió mi padre hace treinta años, y porque Lucio Cabañas, el guerrillero, estuvo aquí.

El primer día de escuela supe que el símbolo de nuestra Normal es una tortuga. Está en el escudo, flanqueada por dos plantas verdes y coronada por un libro de hojas abiertas. Ayotzinapa viene de ayotl: tortuga. Yo me sé una fábula sobre una: en una carrera le gana a la liebre presumida, nomás con pura persistencia.

Aquí en la escuela nos sentíamos semillas en tierra árida y pugnábamos por germinar. A mí me querían dormido, me querían callado. A mí y a todos mis hermanos-tortuga, los invisibles, los obstinados.Tenemos la necedad del ayotl.

Papá gobierno envió a sus perros y a nosotros nos desaparecieron, de noche y sin testigos, como los cobardes. Ni entregaron nuestros cuerpos para que nos velaran. Mi madre me anda buscando, dice que le han robado todo: que hasta el miedo le quitaron. Ahora ella también anda en la calle, gritando.

Una multitud inunda las avenidas de todo el mundo y secunda a mi madre. Gente que no conocí pasa lista hasta llegar a 43 y grita mi nombre: Giovanni Galindes Guerrero. 43 de nosotros no estamos. ¿Cómo ganarle a la liebre si no dejan correr a los hermanos-tortuga?

Texto perteneciente a Proyecto Diez 43: La vida detrás de cada nombre