Mixteca Poblana – Entire towns which were populated by peasant families only a decade ago have disappeared today. Not a soul remains, since even the children have left in search of the so-called American Dream, and the towns have become ghost towns.

In 1990 the Municipal Councils of the National Population Council (COESPO in the acronym for its Spanish name, Consejo Estatal de Población) had registered five ghost towns. Now the number has tripled, with at least 15 ghost towns counted in the Mixteca Poblana and in the Sierra Negra.

According to COESPO, this is the result of unemployment and unfertile land, in other words, of no chance to get ahead, reasons enough to migrate to other places in Mexico or to the United States. This has left entire communities empty in municipalities like Piaxtla, Chinantla, Chiautla de Tapia, Tulcingo de Valle, Izúcar de Matamoros, Tehutzingo, Acatlán, Santa María Caltepec, and Zacapala.

Tehutzingo

This municipality, in the Mixteca Poblana, is a clear example, where the primary schools have been closed for lack of pupils in five communities.

By the same token, ranch towns like Texcalapa and Ojo de Agua, in Zacapala, have been erased from the map; in these locations there are but empty houses and desolation rules.

"The social problem is that the youth were the first to emigrate; they waited until they had finished grade school and then high school to leave the place. Only adults remained, and they've been dying off bit by bit, until today no one lives in these places," said Juan Cruz Aranda, the Municipal Inspector in Loma Cajón, a ranch town that has barely 80 inhabitants left.

Piaxtla

Here things are no different. Since in 2009, at least 2,000 Poblanos have left for the United States, leaving several little towns practically empty.

Two thirds of the inhabitants of Piaxtla and Chinantla, two municipalities separated by a street, are in the United States, says Father Gustavo Rodríguez, the coordinator at the Centro de Comunicación Popular.

Alberto Lira, who was born in this place 84 years ago, still remembers the days when there were "good dances; there were string bands here, really good music, four or five gentlemen playing, one on the violin, another on the guitar. There were a lot of people who came here; every house had as many as three young women in those days; I had plenty of girlfriends."

But today only memories remain, since only the old refuse to abandon this land, where they assure us they will die.

Magdalena Tlatauquitepec

Eusebia Sánchez Miranda and her family refuse to leave this place, although it was listed by the State Population Council as a ghost town. So they have no alternative but to risk their lives making brujitas (little witches) and palomas (doves) – fireworks – to earn enough to sustain her seven children.

"The town, the last few years, little by little it's been disappearing. The houses look abandoned, the public plazas completely empty, and the streets are silent. Even the indigenous Mixtecans and Nahuas left," said Eusebia, as her eyes fill with tears.

According to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policies (Consejo Nacional de Evaluacion de Desarollo Social, or CONEVAL), this place had a population of 722 persons in the year 2000, and 10 years later it was down to 226, a figure displayed proudly on one side of the rusted sign that welcomes travelers to this place.

But it bothers Doña Catalina Melchor that people call La Magdalena a "ghost town," in spite of the fact she was not born here. She says, "It hits me when they say, 'Yeah, the ghost town,' about us because who are we? We're here; we're real; we work. If they don't see anyone it's because they're hard at work on the fireworks or out in the fields. But if we were ghosts we wouldn't have schools, from kindergarten to high school, a church, a park, or the market every Saturday."

What is certain is that abandoned houses predominate in this place, a panorama you can also see in the little town of San Miguel Ixitlán (524 inhabitants), San Martín Totoltepec (population 720), Santa Catarina Tlaltempan (725 townspeople) and Axutla (855 citizens).

That's how, in various corners of Puebla, houses are turning to dust, and as time goes by these places will be known only by references in books.