Latest Posts

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

Our Last Day in San Marcos, TX

Snapshots
Group photo at an art festival.
Our team at the art festival

I have enjoyed an incredible three days at Texas State University at ORPL participating in the analysis of the skeletal remains that were recovered by the UIndy team in January, May 2013 or June 2014.  I learned an incredible amount in the process and I feel so far beyond grateful to be here.  After analyzing 9 cases (our goal was 6), today was our rest day before we travel to Rio Grande City tomorrow.  We left the hotel at 9am to go to Gil’s Broiler for Manske rolls.  We realized before we left that Gil’s didn’t open until 11am though, so we ran a few errands before going for breakfast.  A few of us needed a couple of odds and ends to survive the rest of the trip, so we stopped at CVS to pick up a few things.  We were on the hunt for a cooling towel, which will be essential when we are in Rio Grande City performing exhumations.  It is supposed to be around 100 degrees each day we are in the field, only allowing each of us to work about 4 minutes before we have to take an 8 minute hydration and cooling break.  During this time, a cooling towel will help tremendously to cool us down.  One of our team members forgot her cooling towel in Indiana, so we did some hunting around San Marcos to find one.

After CVS, we went to Lowe’s to pick up tarps to keep our van clean after our field days next week.  We want to preserve the beautiful brand new van as much as we possibly can, so we decided tarps were completely necessary.  After Lowe’s, we went to Academy, a sporting goods store, to find the cooling towel.  We were successful and what a cool store that was!  After that, it was nearing 11am so we headed for Gil’s to get our Manske rolls.  When we got there, there were a couple of people waiting outside.

Manske rolls bakery.

The doors finally opened a little after 11 and we were so excited.  We ordered our Manske rolls at the counter, a few of us adding half of a Hershey’s bar to our rolls, and then we found a table to wait.  After getting our rolls, it was very difficult not to scarf them down because they were so delicious.

A Manske roll.

After our breakfast, we traveled a short way past Texas State University, a beautiful campus, to an art show we were invited to by Kate Spradley.  It was located at the Eye of the Dog Art Center and was a pottery show.  The pottery on display was so beautiful.  We really enjoyed seeing it all.  We spoke with one artist who informed us that they have three art shows a year and this was their biggest one.  It was so neat to see all of the different ways clay can be used to make beautiful pieces of art.

After the art show, we went back to the hotel to relax and do laundry before dinner.  We left at 6pm for a restaurant called “54th Street”, which turned out to be extremely busy because of a prom being held nearby.  It was a lot of fun to see the prom dresses as we were waiting for our table.  We waited for about an hour before our table was ready.  The food was fantastic, and thus the wait was well worth it.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving for Rio Grande City at around 10am.  It will take us about 6 hours to get there.  I am so excited for this next leg of our journey in Texas.  I have had an amazing experience here thus far, and I very much look forward to being able to learn so much more about this process, as well as observe a different culture.  I am so glad that the University of Indianapolis offers experiences such as this one, and I am so thankful for Dr. Latham and the wealth of knowledge she is able to share.  I have learned so much from this experience already, and I am looking forward to learning a lot more.

Haley