Mirei Sandi lay on the bed with his eyes wide open. Her skin was pale, her white hair almost did not disappear. She was diagnosed with breast cancer years earlier, and recently she had spread to her brain and affected her speech. When we first met, in May, she waved to me closer, grabbed my hand a strange grip and said, As best as possible:
“I want to see my son again.” Then she started crying.
With a knot in my throat, I held her hand, fearing that she would not have enough time to see the only son of Wilmer Vega Sandy.
Her health was that she made her son migrating in the United States. His detention and later deportation to the maximum security in Salvador, known as Sycot, in turn led me to his bedroom in a small village in Andes.
In the last four months, as part of the investigation under the guidance of propublica in cooperation with Texas Tribune, Alianza Rebelde Restiga (Rebel Alliance Resort) and Cazadores De News (forged News), I recorded in photos of five families, whose sons were planted in the tour. also their return to Venezuela where I am from. I visited my mother such as Mirei Sondi and other relatives to find out how the absence of their loved ones affected them.
I walked next to them when they protested on the streets of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. I saw them when their hopes grew when the word was that the men’s return negotiations continued, and I saw them again when these hopes were lowered after the first negotiations were unable.
I recorded home when the men fled sharply back.
Lina Ramos lived in a modest area on the outskirts of Caracas and visited several marches I took a picture. I knew how tight the money for the family and the incredible effort she needed to compete for his son Juan Jose Ramos. Lina told me that she would have to be crowdfund and receive donations from her church, family and neighbors to afford the bus ticket for a round trip to the capital. According to her imprisonment, she did not allow her to sit still.
The Hrisalid Bastidas House was also modest. Imagine a tiny kitchen in the left corner and, on the opposite wall, two big beds apart to sleep a few people. Her son Jose Manuel Ramas Bastidas was in Sycott for more than three months until we met, and I saw her hope disappear when his imprisonment stretched. Her sadness was visible and she looked exhausted. She told me that she couldn’t sleep when her 1-year-old grandson was not with her, together with the image of Jose Manuel as a child who hung over the bed. Both were identical as children, and she pressed her grandchild to feel close to her son.
As they went more, they sometimes talk about their sons in the past. Then they quickly correct themselves and said, “He is alive.”
I remember one mother on her knees crying and asked, “Please make this stop.”
One morning I called me, in which they said that men were returning home. It was one of the many mothers I have met over the past few months. I’m with caution because it was not the first time I called so and I always worried that disappointment would do with them. Doris Sandy, Aunt Wilmer, called me and asked several times if the men were returning home. She smuggled her heart with caution again. But this time it was true.
As long as I left the house, families who could afford to come to Caracas were already going downtown. This time they celebrated.
I collided with Lina Ramos and almost did not recognize her. She had a wide smile I had never seen before. She hugged me greatly, seeing a familiar face with dozens of cameras. I walked next to her on a mile.
The next day, I ended up in the house of Lina at the sun rise, waiting to finally take a picture of my son. Lina received $ 20 donations from family and neighbors, and she used the money to decorate her home. She made a stewed chicken with rice and plantain, her favorite son. Lina did not want to accept phone calls to avoid the line when Juan called. She will not leave the house because the rumors went around that if no one was home, police officers who accompany men would not throw them away. Lina was forced to stand on the site for the first time in four months.
Lina’s grandchildren grabbed my hand and took me to help them choose flowers to greet the uncle. They spent hours, making flower arrangements, and then tied yellow, blue and red balloons in the arch. But the time passed, and Juan did not arrive. The balloons began to emerge in the heat. By the time I came out, the flowers withered, and the balloon arch disappeared halfway.
Carmen Bonila had to be expelled from one of her jobs – she goes by taxi and sometimes buys, and then resell cheese – just in case someone brought her son Andrew home. The last few days when men returned to Venezuela, but not yet at home, felt longer than the rest. No one dared to leave the house or call. I remember Carmen viewed her phone and viewed the video when Andrew sang a song on the bus after the men arrived back to Venezuela. Carmen was happy but embarrassed. “He should be very happy to sing,” she said. “Andri is not like that. He is very serious.”
I think at this moment she realized that the son she was raising may not be the same person who was returning home. What happened to them in those months in prison probably changed them forever.
When Juan Jose Ramos arrived at the house of Lina, he cried and pointed to the paint. He said he wanted to give his mother a more decent home; It was one of his reasons to go to the US in jail, he asked the guards to end his life, not to make him live anymore. Listening to her son, talking about her experience, she tried to understand the weight of his words.
I returned again to take pictures of myre Sandy. This time she cried with joy while her son kept her. Like his mother, he spent four months with a daily thought that he may not make him home to say goodbye to her.
She held my hand again, and I leaned back to listen to her. In the previous four months, she became so weak that I barely thought her words: “Thank you, thank you.” It seemed to me that during this time, each of the men had lost not only the time in Salvador, but also lost their loved ones. They lacked the highlights that can never be restored. Men not only said they were tortured during these four months; Their families said they were too.
When the fireworks exploded in Umuken, and the residents surrounded Wilmer Vega, Miri Sandy said, “It felt endless at night.” Wilmer fell to his knees as if he were barely carrying the joy of that moment.
Several men said that the guards told them every day that they were insignificant and no one was looking for them. I thought about these words and asked what Wilmer Vega thinks when people of his hometown were filled with streets to say hello.
The men said they returned home deeply injured. Most men I met, struggled for sleep, drink water or left their homes. Wilmer flared up, telling me that he had a panic attack when he first went down a busy commercial street. In many cases, the celebration was bitter. The men were at home but they were colorful.
I thought it would be the end of the section, the long -awaited reunion. But life is more nuanced than that. As soon as I saw and heard from these people, it was clear that the path before them was cool. They return to Venezuela after they lost what little they did before. Most of them said they had lost everything, either during the detention in the United States or during the imprisonment in Salvador.
In many cases, these men left Venezuela almost ten years ago. Their beds, their friends, their employers, even their children are gone. They returned only with the clothes they dressed without the equipment to restore the work, to the country that is largely the same as they had to leave. When asked about the future, they had no answer.
All this made me think about Venezuela’s longing for the possibility, security and freedom. Millions of people made sense to imagine life in the US, which was perceived as a shelter. Many Venezuelans supported President Donald Trump’s policy, especially after his first term. I do not know how much this episode will change its views, but this is undoubtedly a sober moment for many.
However, thousands of Venezuelans collect their suitcases. Boats, planes and buses continue to go in other directions: Colombia, Peru, Brazil, even Spain. They are filled with people who want to provide their children with medical care, buy mothers a more beautiful home, afford treatment for parents.
But this may not change the question that many Venezuelans now ask each other: where are we safe?
