The air outside the Olivares family home in San Marcos Atexquilapan was thick with wood smoke mixed with incense.
Three huge crowns leaned against the front of his modest two-story house; they were for Misael, Yovani and Jair.
The photographs of the three cousins were in the center of the flower arrangements. Their smooth features and unlined faces revealed how young they were when they set out on their fateful journey north a few weeks ago.
Misael and Yovani were 16 years old. Jair, Yovani’s eldest and brother, was 20.
They were too young to die. Their bodies were left inside an airless and waterless truck trailer on a desolate back road in San Antonio, Texas, about 800 miles from their home.
They were among 53 migrants from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who died in June of suffocation in the deadliest human trafficking incident in US history.
The bodies of the two teenagers and the young man were back in the town they left from, with their coffins side by side in the front room of the family home.
And the entire community of San Marcos Atexquilapan came to express their condolences and support the grieving family.
“In a way, I’m a little calmer now because I was so worried about them,” said Yolanda, the mother of the two brothers, as a steady stream of locals streamed past to light candles at an altar erected in their memory.
The uncertainty about his whereabouts was replaced by a deep sense of loss.
“Even though I know I’ll never see them again, at least I’ll have a place to mourn them and bring them flowers,” she said.
On the spot, some men were cutting up six freshly cooked pigs. They had been donated by local farmers.
The women cooked the pork in a spicy stew served with tamales and washed down with copious amounts of sugary soft drinks.
It was comfort food for a community that desperately needed a little comfort.
The hectic activity in the kitchen and the traditional funeral rites provided a distraction for the family.
The Olivares had left the town in search of greater economic opportunities.
They were not fleeing violence or organized crime. They were not political exiles nor were they seeking asylum from persecution.
They were just kids hoping to get to Austin, Texas, to earn money to send home to their families.
And to find new perspectives beyond the limited horizons from which they were born.
It is a story that the communities of the mountains of the state of Veracruz know very well.
“We knew the risks, but they had seen others arrive (to the United States), including young women, and that motivated them to try it too,” explained Yolanda, serene despite her pain.
“They had plans. They wanted to build a house, open a business, not just sit here making shoes.”
The entire town of San Marcos Atexquilapan is one long production line for shoes and boots, and many houses have a workshop in the living room.
“We can make 80 pairs in a good day,” Tomás Valencia, a cousin of the Olivares brothers, told me as he used a compressed-air machine to put soles on work boots.
With that, he earns between 600 and 800 Mexican pesos per week (US$30-US$40).
The meager income has led Tomás to seriously consider undertaking the same risky journey as his cousins, a temptation that has apparently crossed the minds of almost every young man in town.
But after getting married just a year ago and seeing her relatives face their gruesome deaths along the way, she decided to stay. At least for now.
These family-run shoe factories, the mainstay of the town’s economy along with farming and ranching, are no match for attractive steady work paid in US dollars.
“If things continue as they are, we will probably end up like some other towns around here: like a ghost town,” said Juan Valencia, a retired shoemaker who left the trade when he began to lose his sight. “Only the old people will be left. All the young people will be gone.”
He thinks that unless large-scale shoe factories are established in the region, there will be little to deter young people from migrating, especially given the economic slowdown caused by the covid pandemic.
Valencia’s 26-year-old son is currently en route north and hasn’t been heard from in eight days.
“I’m not too worried, but after what happened you think about it,” he said. “I would be lying if I said otherwise.”
It was not a surprise for Misael’s father, Gerardo Olivares. He says that the fact that his son’s journey ended so tragically won’t discourage others from trying. And he doesn’t think they should stop doing it.
“Young people should pursue their dreams,” he said. “Only God knows our future. Only he knows how things end. It is not the same tragedy for everyone. Each one has his own destiny.”
After the people ate, the church bells rang and the parents, uncles and friends of the young people carried the three coffins on their shoulders.
The procession made its way through town to the church, and mourners sang a soft hymn as they walked behind the coffins, many wiping away tears.
Perhaps they thought that, with a little twist of fate, the youngsters might as well have made it to Austin, Texas. Now they could be looking for work instead of being buried in their hometown.
After mass, bottles of aguardiente and beer were handed out to people who needed a stiff drink after an emotionally draining day.
One of the young men’s uncles, Oscar, played a video on his mobile phone. It was the last contact the family had with them during their trip.
It showed them lying in single beds in a cheap motel or migrant shelter somewhere in northern Mexico.
They were shirtless in the sweltering heat, smiling and waving to family in Veracruz.
Not long after that video was taken, Jair, Yovani and Misael were loaded into a truck trailer and boarded full of hope, only to have their youthful dreams snuffed out along with those of 50 others.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-62362814, IMPORTING DATE: 2022-07-31 19:10:06
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