In the lands of the coffee, from the book, Searching for treasures
Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico
“Well… I can’t speak for the rest, for I would only be guessing, and I cannot honestly answer for them. Each one us surely had their own personal reason for moving out towards unknown, virgin lands (that is to say, bare plots and parcels with nothing done and everything to be done). Clearly, each of these reasons must have been perfectly valid, wouldn’t you think?”
“I dare imagine that the first families to risk everything and gamble it all, must have been the same families that arrived first and claim the lower holdings, the best terrains, the ones that were flat and not too steep, those not high up in the mountain reaches. Most assuredly, the families that followed later found the best lands taken and owned by the families that got up early and left before them. So they had no alternative but to go higher up or go back. But, go back to what? Go back to the miserable poverty they knew and had left behind? So, as time passed, the new settlers had to walk further, past all those who had arrived before them, eventually occupying those remote spots you were talking about. What do thing ’bout that?”
Observing Jean Marie’s expression, he continued in a subdued voice:
“Complicated, most terribly complicated. But life ain’t easy, as my father used to say! In our case, I can barely remember those days. I was probably around twelve-years-old when we left Villamaria to never return. Of course, we went back on different occasions, but only to visit and do some shopping. But the fact is, we never returned to live there. We, by that, I mean my family, settled in a place known, in those days, by the name of Villarica.”