CHE GUEVARA Biography

Ernesto Che Guevara was born on June 14 in Rosario, Argentina. He was the

eldest of five chidren in a middle-class family of Spanish-Irish descent and leftist

leanings. His parents were not very religious and were liberal closer to left .

During the Spanish civil war they had the supported the Republicans. His mother Celia

de la Serna was a rebellious girl who was a defending of the feminist movement from

the end of The First Wold War. In Buenos Aires, the most european city of América

Latina, Celia became one of the first women who were criticized to be short-haired. She

drove her own car, signed her own cheques and folded one ́s legs in public. She usually

went to swimming because she thought it was good for her health. On May 2 she took

two years old Che with her to swimming, he caught cold and had his first asthma

attack from which he suffered all his life. It supposed a sad even for the family. The

doctors advised the family to move to the drier climate of Alta Gracia (Cordoba). 

EDUCATION

He received Primary Education at home mostly by his mother who taught to read

and write since four years old. In 1941 he went to Secondary School in The Colegio

Nacional Dean Funes, Cordoba, where was being educated in English. In the meanwhile

he was also learning French from his mother. At the age of fourteen became a voracious

reader of Marx, Engels and Freud which all were available in his father ́s library. He

especially loved French poetry, and he had a great passion for Boudelaire ́s works.

When he was sixteen, he became an admirer of Neruda.. He excelled only in literarure

and sports. His favorite sport was the rugby so he played in The San Isidro team which

result of his asthma he had to leave it, by order of his parents. However he carried on

secretly playing rugby. With some friends he created a magazine called

Tackle

(Placaje). Journalist Ernesto ́s nicknames were:

Chancho

(cerdo), o

Chang-Cho.

He was

obligated to improve his asthma, the student played tennis, golf and began to pilot

planes with his uncle Jorge. He was obligated by his grandmother ́s agony, who died in

1947, and by understanding his own disease to study Medicine in Buenos Aires

University.

Nevertheless he wanted to work to earn his living. He worked as a male nurse in

an oil industry, in the municipal slaughterhouse and later in The University ́s library.

With a partner made an insecticide, el “Atila” which hadn ́t success.

“I don ́t know how he could do many things. He, who looked like an untidy boy,

distributed his time very well. ” Said Ernesto Guevara father.

He took no part in revolutionary student movements and showed little interest in

politics at Buenos Aires University.

The university disappointed him, his dreamt was a vocation and in the university

they talked about an university degree.

   He longed for descover the world.

    TRAVELS AROUND THE LATIN PROVINCES

He made long travels in Argentina and in other Latin America countries. In 1948

during his studient holidays, he made the first of his long journeys, exploring northem

Argentina on a bicycle to meet with his friend Alberto Granado who had already

finished his studies of medicin and was working with lepers in San Francisco del

Chañar (north of Cordoba). It was the first time coming into contact with the very poor

and the remnants of the Indian tribes. At the same time his critical views about the

expanding economic influence of the United States deepened. To run the 850 kilometres

which separated him from Alberto, he installed a little motor on his bycicle. He only

carried with himself a spare inne tube, some clothes and a Nehru ́s book.

At the end of his holidays he came back to Buenos Aires by secundary roads, runnig a

total of 4500 kilometres this time.

On December 29 in 1951 the two friends, Ernesto and Alberto, started a new trip

on an old Norton of 500 cm

3

motorbike “La Poderosa”. At the back of the motorbike,

they carried two sleeping bags, a tent and some clothes. Ernesto had to promise to his

parents that he wouldn ́t forget his medicine against the asthma and that would come

back to finish his university degree.

First, he went to Miramar where met his first girlfriend María del Carmen, who

was called Chichina. Her father was the baron Ferreira so she was a rich glamorous

young of the argentinian aristocracy through she didn ́t think like his friends (inmatures

of daddy).

Chichina said: “Opposite our snob style, emphasized his vulgar style. He bought his

shoes in opportunity shops and it looked that he chose them to give the impression he

had his feet of different size. He enjoyed with the criticism of the people and our gibes

were indifferent for him.”

On February 19 in 1952 the local newspaper from Temuco, a little town from

Chile, published: “ two argentinian experts in leprosy are running suthern America on

motorbike”.

The doctor Granado and Ernesto Guevara crossed the rage of the Andes and

arrived to Chile but the Norton didn ́t work. They hitch-hiked and arrived at Valparaíso,

where embarked like stowayways on a merchant ship. They arrived to Antofagasta,

from where visited the mines of Chuquicamata, which were explotated by

northamerican. It was a revelation of the injustice. Said Alberto: “Like a trick goes them

away, the Indian tribes watch how their piece of land is transformated in money”.

The two pals went to Peru, TheTiticaca lake, The Cuzco, The Machu Picchu,

and after that they went to Amazonia, where landed on the clinic of leprosy from San

Pablo. Fourty years after that, leper indians still remembered those two men who helped

them. The lepers were as grateful that built a raft for Alberto and Guevara who

continued their trip on Amazonas river.

At the end on July in 1952, the two friends sepereted in Caracas. Che graduated

from medical school as a doctor in March 1953. There ́s no doubt that this was an

adventure trip because they travelled without a penny, eating whenever it was possible.

After getting his title as an allergist, his teacher, Dr. Pisani, offered Ernesto the

chance to work with him, but he didin ́t want to take the job, he preferred to go to

Venezuela to work with his friend Alberto, but before getting there he went to Bolivia

where he met Ricardo Rojo, an antiperonist lawyer who was expelled from Argentina.

Ernesto made his way with this man, but Ricardo convinced him to go to Guatemala

(where a revolution was about to take place), instead of to Venezuela. He wasn`t still

25 years old, and the “doctor” Guevara early went on his way again.