Tomorrow, it will be 43 days since the 43 students at the Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos, teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero went missing. Images of the missing are being posted online and on walls.
Oaxaca, along with the rest of Mexico, is heartbroken and outraged that her sons have not been found. “We are not sheep to be killed whenever they feel like it” Emiliano Navarrete, father of one of the missing students, declared following a meeting with Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto.
As the brilliant Día de los Muertos colors of cempasúchil (marigolds), cresta de gallo (celosia or cockscomb), and roses began to fade, a massive march, led by the parents of the missing, filled the streets of Mexico City on November 5.
And, Oaxaca continues to add her voice on walls, in the streets, and at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO).
… where a beautiful poem, simply entitled “Ayotzinapa,” fills one of the walls of the courtyard.
Ayotzinapa
Mordemos la sombra
Y en la sombra
Aparecen los muertos
Como luces y frutos
Como vasos de sangre
Como piedras de abismo
Como ramas y frondas
De dulces vísceras
Los muertos tienen manos
Empapadas de angustia
Y gestos inclinados
En el sudario del viento
Los muertos llevan consigo
Un dolor insaciable
Esto es el país de las fosas
Señoras y señores
Este es el país de los aullidos
Este es el país de los niños en llamas
Este es el país de las mujeres martirizadas
Este es el país que ayer apenas existía
Y ahora no se sabe dónde quedó
Estamos perdidos entre bocanadas
De azufre maldito
Y fogatas arrasadoras
Estamos con los ojos abiertos
Y los ojos los tenemos llenos
De cristales punzantes
Estamos tratando de dar
Nuestras manos de vivos
A los muertos y a los desaparecidos
Pero se alejan y nos abandonan
Con un gesto de infinita lejanía
El pan se quema
Los rostros se queman arrancados
De la vida y no hay manos
Ni hay rostros
Ni hay país
Solamente hay una vibración
Tupida de lágrimas
Un largo grito
Donde nos hemos confundido
Los vivos y los muertos
Quien esto lea debe saber
Que fue lanzado al mar de humo
De las ciudades
Como una señal del espíritu roto
Quien esto lea debe saber también
Que a pesar de todo
Los muertos no se han ido
Ni los han hecho desaparecer
Que la magia de los muertos
Está en el amanecer y en la cuchara
En el pie y en los maizales
En los dibujos y en el río
Demos a esta magia
La plata templada
De la brisa
Entreguemos a los muertos
A nuestros muertos jóvenes
El pan del cielo
La espiga de las aguas
El esplendor de toda tristeza
La blancura de nuestra condena
El olvido del mundo
Y la memoria quebrantada
De todos los vivos
Ahora mejor callarse
Hermanos
Y abrir las manos y la mente
Para poder recoger del suelo maldito
Los corazones despedazados
De todos los que son
Y de todos
Los que han sido
David Huerta
2 de noviembre de 2014. Oaxaca
Update: Just hours after posting this, the worst has been announced. According to Mexico’s attorney general, “The 43 Mexican students who disappeared near Iguala, in southern Mexico in September, were kidnapped by police on order of the mayor, and turned over to a gang that killed them and burned their bodies before throwing the remains in a river….” — CNN
I can’t even begin to imagine the pain the parents must be feeling with the knowledge of the suffering and brutality their sons endured. I am so sad and tears are welling up. I think I will just let them fall…
Mexican Peso Converter
Any suspects? This is an outrage that has also shocked us in Canada.
Ian, they have arrested many… However, we may never know the truth.
Reblogged this on Oaxaca Cultural Navigator : Norma Hawthorne and commented:
Bloqueos are also about this! I hesitate to reblog this post because it portrays the ugly underbelly of Mexico. It is not the perception of Mexico that I choose to convey. Yet is is real and about real people. At the same time, would-be visitors are afraid to travel here because of news like this. And, at the same time, the new United States Congress is purchased by Koch Brothers monied interests and elections take on a new and different meaning about representing the voice of the people. I will leave it to the reader to come to his/her own conclusions.
I love living in Mexico and I especially love Oaxaca and her people. La vida (for us extraños from los estados unidos) es mejor. Pero… this is not Disneylandia. The “underbelly” is ever present and much of it can be laid at the doorstep of NAFTA, poverty in the USA and Mexico, and the US demand for drugs.
I found this after I just posted my take on things. There’s no news about this in the UK, it’s buried deep in newspapers and on the back pages of the BBC. The poem is lovely and your photos are poignant.
Thank you. It has finally taken the latest news to put it on the front page of CNNI.
[…] are also about this! The living, the dead and the missing: The students from […]
What a terrible tragedy! What’s even worse, from my point of view, is that it never appeared on the various network news programs I follow! Is it less serious than the news they choose to air?
I think network TV is a hopeless source of real news! However, according to the Desinformémonos Facebook site, word has gotten out and there have been solidarity events in Europe, Latin America, and the USA.
I remember this tragedy, but only seeing this post for the first time. I love the poem – it conveys the sadness and the anguish of the people over such events.