All posts by Isabel Melhado

Day 6 was quite the day. We started out with some hotel breakfast, including Texas shaped waffles, eggs, refried beans, and a much needed Emergen-C, to get us ready for the day as we knew it was supposed to be the hottest temperatures of our time in Texas. Once we arrived at the cemetery, we set out to work on a burial we had begun yesterday. We rotated in teams of two using a mattock to remove portions of the wall and trowels to remove smaller debris to reveal the edges of the burial. As we learned more about our plans for the day, we split our team to work on two burials. Kaitlyn and Jordan worked on fully exposing the burial from yesterday, while Olivia and I began removing debris and tracing some promising clues to find the individual suspected to be in said burial and Dr. Latham switched between the two.

Our communication as a team has grown so much. One of the most repeated comments during our meetings on where we can improve has been spatial awareness, knowing where we are and what we are doing in regards to not only others but the tools, burial, and burial walls. I think Olivia and I bonked heads at least 12 times today, BUT we worked so efficiently with one another we almost didn’t need to say what our next move was because the other was already ready to help. For most of the day, the two of us were working almost upside down, having to take small breaks to allow the blood to go where it’s supposed to after pooling in our heads. As we continued to work, Kaitlyn and Jordan had fully exposed their burial and were ready for measurements. Together, we completed the measurements, composed a strategy for a safe and efficient burial removal, and successfully moved as one. We also learned this individual already has a suspected ID hypothesis.

We then had lunch. Lunch is a good time for us to decompress a bit, stretch, get rehydrated and replenished from our hard work. Today, we took an extended lunch break in an effort to respect a funeral that was beginning in the cemetery. We understand cemeteries are places where people come to honor their loved ones who have passed and would never want them to feel as though our work comes before their grieving. Once the funeral attendees began to leave, we decided to slowly and discretely get back to work.

After lunch, Jordan and Kaitlyn moved down to work with Olivia and I as Dr. Latham was on bucket duty. Excavating burials can be very tricky. Although general direction can be assumed, depth is variable. The ground is rarely level when an individual is placed in the ground, so we must always proceed with caution. As the Texas heat rose, we decided to use our timer and switch out our teams to be able to continue to do our best work and stay healthy. Eventually, we had completely uncovered the burial. We marked our corners and performed our measurements. As Texas State’s team took their measurements, the decision was made to wait to remove the individual from the burial site until morning as it would be too hot for the team in the intake tent. By the time you read this, Texas State’s team will have removed the individual and be working towards collecting information for an ID.

One new challenge we faced was having media present. Individuals from different news/media outlets were on site filming, taking pictures, and talking to some of the site leaders. This creates a few challenges. Having a camera filming your every move or in your face can be off-putting, but in pictures, videos, etc, things can very easily be misconstrued. Not only that but we, as team members, represent our professor, our lab, and our university, so we want to minimize any possible confusion or controversy. We direct all questions to Dr. Latham. She is our team leader and is the appropriate person to answer questions. We also often talk to one another and provide encouragement when a team member makes an accomplishment. We tend to smile, sometimes often depending on what’s going on. We would never want this to be misconstrued as “having fun” or being disrespectful while performing such delicate and important work. We care intensely about what we do, and to have that be misunderstood would be extremely unfortunate.

Since our last work day had now come to an end, we did a final exploration of a possible burial in close proximity to our exposed burial, cleaned our equipment, and had our final ice cold Coke as a team. We also had a little ceremony for our gloves that were definitely not coming back in our suitcases after the week we’ve had. We finished up the day with a great dinner with Deputy Don White, Eddie, and Dr. Spradley before coming back to the hotel to have our final debrief and clean the rest of our personal gear for travel.

Our last day debrief is different from the rest because we have a few different questions than usual, one housekeeping and one personal. Along with saying what we did well and any equipment we may need to change for upcoming trips, we discuss coming back to normal life and how hard that adjustment can be. [I am going to save many of my thoughts for my post-trip post.] We talked about how we are a team even when we return to Indy and to lean on each other when needed.

Saying goodbye not only to everyone we made such great connections with here but also to the work we have devoted ourselves to for our time here is hard. I’m thankful for the opportunity to have helped make even a minute difference.

See ya in the post-trip post!

–Izzy

Day 2 started with Kaitlyn’s tai chi and the rest of us rolling out of bed to the hotel breakfast. Once we had finished eating, we packed up the minivan [still yet to be named] and headed to the cemetery to continue our work. At the end of the day yesterday, we had fully prepared the second individual in our area to be removed first thing this morning.

As we prepared for this task, the Texas State team continued the work in their area as well. We removed a bit more of the dirt to better expose the individual on all sides and mapped in the four corners of the burial. After, we devised a plan to safely remove the individual. This ended up including the use of the mattock [my new favorite tool!] to create better stairs and footholds for us to use to step out of the burial while carrying the individual. We then implemented our plan and successfully moved the individual to a new body bag on the surface level then to the intake tent. By the end of the day, we had all together exhumated 3 additional individuals.

Many of these graves are marked with a white cross and some with a marker stating their associated case number and dates. We proceeded to map in the other grave markers where we plan on continuing to work for the next few days. Although we have some information from the workers at the cemetery and Dr. Spradley about where many individuals are buried, there is no guarantee about where they actually are inside the burial shaft. Once all the burials exposed yesterday had been exhumed, the cemetery workers refilled the holes with the dirt we took out and began excavating the dirt above more suspected burials with a backhoe. This is a very slow process as it is very important to just remove dirt down to the layer above the burials as to protect the individual inside the burial from any excavation damage. Our tools gradually get smaller the closer to the individual we get, from mattocks to shovels to trowels to our hands.

While this was going on, some members from Texas State‘s team taught us about their electromagnetic resistivity device [RES], a device used to survey disturbances in the soil underground. In this context, the RES can be used to identify burials underground. We also got a special knife safety lesson from Deputy Don White [The more you know … with Don!]. Don’s wisdom never fails as he knows just about everything [any anything] we throw at him!

We called it a day early to prepare our plan for the newly uncovered areas. After showers, we went to Laredo Tacos and HEB and came back to our evening debrief. We always go around in a circle and each say one thing we did well and one thing we believe we can improve on, followed by any thoughts and concerns then the plan for tomorrow. This is one of the things I personally believe really helps us as a team. Our communication here travels into the field so we can better work together. Even though it’s day two, it was obvious our meeting yesterday translated to today as the removal of the individual from our site this morning went even better than our removal yesterday.

Our team focuses a lot on efficiency and procedure of excavation and exhumation, but we are not blind to the circumstances that brought us here. I, personally, have never dealt with death at this scale, even after two trips of searching the Texas borderlands previously. We hear stories about how these individuals came to be in our care. It can be very overwhelming to be literally face-to-face with this tragedy. The urge to do our absolute best for every individual we can is strong and is the biggest motivator any time we feel sore, fatigued, etc. A great example is each member of the team being told once a day [at least] that we must take a break because we only want to keep pushing forward.

Tomorrow will be a long and physically demanding day, but we are all ready to get back to work. Good things will happen!

–Izzy

(also hi Ray)