The incredible story of Lidia, Jesús and Toti

We arrived in Santa Ana del Valle, Oaxaca, in the middle of siesta time. Almost like a stereotype, a skinny dog crossing the deserted central square, a woman half-opening the door of her house and peeking outside. Her face, the blue apron and the door of the same color activated my photographic alerts and I approached her. We began to converse immediately. Behind her we could see an old wooden loom and adobe walls. As soon as I asked him about it, he invited us in. In fact, he insisted that we did so and that we should get to know the centenary house. I was accompanied by Ray, the 87 year old street photographer I met in Oaxaca, and his great friend Carlos, who used to act as guide. So we spent the afternoon with Lidia García and her dog Toti, a skinny and porky Great Dane who loved to be petted as much as to sprawl in the yard of fresh earth.

For my part, I interspersed questions about her life and shooting with my little Lumix, while she continued talking with total naturalness. She mentioned that in fact she was used to cameras, as she had participated in several commercials and even in a movie, entitled Los Angeles. We were all dumbfounded: the charming Toltec weaver from this town of 2000 inhabitants, on film sets, was not in our plans. But this was just the first surprise, an introduction to the incredible story that was to come.

Lidia told us that her role was that of mother of a teenager leaving her small town in Mexico, to go to seek her fortune in the United States and help her family. We noticed that he slowly began to break down. The sadness came over her, eyes reddened, tears welled. I lowered my camera. She took a time, pulled herself together, and began to explain to us the reason for that emotion she could not contain: the story of the film and her personal story were incredibly similar. Her own son, Jesus, had left small for the United States many years before, and she never heard from him again. Nothing, no contact, Lidia didn t even know if he was alive. But it did not end there. No.

In fact, during the shooting of the film she felt overwhelmed by grief, which prompted the director to come over to see what was going on, and Lidia told him the reason. Damian John Harper, born in Boulder, Colorado, was at that time 36 years old. Possibly an age similar to that of Jesus. Moved, he promised Lydia that he would find her son. As you can imagine, at this point in the story we were completely astonished and expectant of the ending. And the ending happened at the premiere of the movie: that day Jesus appeared and reunited with his mother after years without any contact. End of movie (worth the expression, of course). Ray, Carlos and me breathed relieved, incredulous, happy, smiling. Toti sensed the change of climate and saw the opportunity. He stood up on his long gangly legs and joined the environment walking his big head under Ray’s big and wrinkled hands.