Category Archives: Human Rights, Migrant Death

Talking about the project itself

Five individuals holding up two fingers in a work area.

Day 2 (field) – We will rock you.

Environment, Human Rights, Migrant Death

Today we arrived at the cemetery at 6:30 am and were able to start our work under the rising sun. Our first goal this morning, was to create steps leading from the excavated area to the surface for us to be able to work efficiently and safely. As we worked, there would be peaks of sunshine complemented by overcast skies and cool winds.

Team members digging steps into the side of the pit.
Creating Steps.

After completing our steps came our first challenge which was uncovering the first burial. Our group quickly found that a portion of the burial extended under one of the walls, requiring us to cut away a section of the wall and then undercutting the same spot another foot just to reach the end. Our group worked efficiently and tirelessly; taking turns every 4-5 minutes, that way everyone had an opportunity to rest and drink plenty of water.

Group photo of team members sitting on the steps into the pit.
Group photo on our woman-made steps.

Tomorrow our goal is to tackle the next two burials. Our area is especially tricky because we must excavate the first three burials in our section (including the one that was excavated today), then rebury the area to excavate the last two burials. All the burials are estimated to be at least 5 ft deep but what we have found thus far in this area is that the burials are closer to 6 feet down. Our entire group is extremely thankful for the assistance of the excavator operator, Silvestre, for his assistance with digging the area. It is slightly terrifying to think about where we would be without him. The next three days are going to be extremely hot with temperatures expected to be in the high 90s to 100s with total sunshine. Even though every evening we have come back exhausted, I have a suspicion that these past two days are going to be considered our ‘easy’ days due to the rising temperatures.

It is hard physical work that we are doing, but it is also hard work emotionally. For me, it always comes back to the reasons why we volunteered on this humanitarian issue. No one should be left unidentified and everyone has a right to know what happened to their loved ones. That is all the motivation we need to continue this mission and that is what is going to help us get through the next couple of days. That and iced cold cokes.

Team photo with glass bottle Cokes.

Jessica

Five people with bottles of coke holding up one finger.

Day 1 (Field) – Mud, Clay, and Rocks

Community, Human Rights, Migrant Death

What. A. Day. We went into today knowing that we had our work cut out for us but, true to form, the day was still full of surprises.

Flooded parking lot.
The flooded hotel parking lot

Not least of all of these surprises, our first night in Rio Grande City was accompanied by severe thunderstorms and flash flooding. As much as I was enjoying sitting by the window and watching the thunder and lightning, as the parking lot of the hotel began to flood, I knew that this likely did not bode well for our work in the morning. Sure enough, upon arriving at our area of the cemetery, it was mud, mud, mud.

Fog in a cemetery.

Going into our work in area 2, we were informed that there were five unidentified individuals possibly buried there. According to Silvestre, the man who buried them, all of the individuals were buried 5 feet deep. From prior experience, however, we were doubtful that they were actually buried that deep, as many people often exaggerate or overestimate such dimensions (digging is hard work, after all).

We began the day following the plan that we had set out the night before – clearing trash and debris from the site, measuring and mapping, Team members using a tape measure to map.“shovel-shining” (really just removing the mud and grass, with most of it stuck to our shovels and boots), attempting to probe the ground (somewhat unsuccessfully, due to the very hard cement-like clay that the rain had created), A team member trying to get a t-probe in the ground.and then proceeding to strategize our approach to uncovering the burials. Digging through the peanut-butter like clay was definitely hard work and we were grateful for the overcast skies during the morning. Later on, we were even more grateful for Silvestre and his back-hoe. He offered to help us out and ended up removing about three feet of dirt. As the sun began to peek from behind the clouds, we resumed digging.

Haley excavating as Dr. Latham watches.

Silvestre, however, was adamant that these burials were 5 feet deep. So he brought the back-hoe back around and ended up creating a very large and very deep pit for us. Backhoe digging a pit.And sure enough, it appears that the first burial we uncovered may indeed have been buried 5 feet deep, just as Silvestre said. The day ended up going a little longer than we had originally planned because we needed to be there to monitor the heavy machinery. I know we are all quite exhausted but also very eager to get right back at it tomorrow morning!

Erica

A street sign reading "Rio Grande City 30" in front of trees.

On The Road Again

Environment, Human Rights, Migrant Death
Team photo in the minivan.
Ready to go!

Today was our travel day to Rio Grande City.  We started our day with a smorgasbord for breakfast, trying to finish up all of our leftovers before we hit the road.  Our breakfast consisted of breakfast tacos, lunch meat, a leftover Southwest chicken wrap, and leftover taquitos.  After breakfast, at around 10am, we bid farewell to San Marcos and began the five hour trip to the border.

Water station along the highway.
Water station along the highway

The drive went smoothly, and thankfully, our van has a DVD player so we were able to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Pretty in Pink to pass the time.  The further South we drove, the more rural it got.  At one point, we went an hour and a half without seeing any towns, houses, or buildings.  In our past seasons in Texas, we have heard stories from different individuals regarding their crossing experiences.  Many of these stories indicate that people travel for hours and miles without any more direction than “head towards that tree for about three miles.” It is one thing to hear these stories, but to see the routes and terrain these individuals travel is truly an eye-opening experience.  If it takes over an hour and a half to drive between towns, it is unimaginable how people can walk these distances in the heat of the Texas sun without direction, food, or water.  Along the way, we saw a few water stations placed along the highway.  It was really wonderful to see these water stations, because not only do they indicate a life-saving resource for these individuals, they were built by Eddie and other volunteers at the South Texas Human Rights Center.  So even at the border, we have reminders of the incredible people we have met and wonderful experiences we have had the past five years in Falfurrias.  I think these little reminders are a good sign for our new beginning in a new county.

Rio Grande City Cemetery entrance.
Rio Grande City Cemetery

After we arrived at the hotel, we unpacked our belongings  and took a shopping trip to HEB to get essentials for lunches in the field.  Afterwards, we headed to the cemetery to meet the Texas State team and see what we are up against in the week to come.  We pulled up to the cemetery and it was HUGE!  It was not only larger than Sacred Heart, but also contained a greater variety of graves, including mausoleums and large fenced-off enclosures.  We did a walk-through of the four different sites that UIndy and Texas State plan to excavate this trip and were told that the UIndy crew will begin in Area 2.   After the Texas State team left, we stuck around the cemetery for a bit to formulate a game plan for tomorrow.  Area 2 is covered in debris, rocks, and broken glass, so the first task we will tackle tomorrow is clearing off the surface.  Next, we plan on taking measurements of surface markers for the maps I will create, and we will then begin the excavation process.  I am anxious to start excavations tomorrow, but after devising these plans, I feel confident in what we will be able accomplish the next five days.

UIndy's first excavation area in the cemetery.
Area 2 – UIndy’s first excavation area

—Leann