Maysun Visual Journalist & Storyteller

The Last Two Stars.

Spain is becoming an empty place where thriving villages used to do the landscape. Rural population drift has been inexorable since the 1970s. Thousands of villages have been depopulated since that time. Young people are fleeing from the places where they grew up because of unemployment and the lack of infrastructure. They are moving to bigger towns and cities in search of good jobs, and a brighter future for themselves and their children. This trend has been steady for a number of years and whole villages are for sale today. Nevertheless, elderly folks are attached to the place they were born and hope to die where they lived.

La Estrella, Aragon is an extreme example of how Spain is becoming empty from the inside out: only an octogenarian couple is living here. Sinforosa and Martin refuse to leave their place that was once full of life. The town, stuck in the middle of a frontline during the Spanish Civil War, emptied during and after the war, when hunger pushed its residents in search of job and a brighter future for themselves and their children. But Martin and Sinforosa stayed and they have lived by themselves, with no running water or electricity, for more than 45 years.

Only once a year does the place fill up, and that is during the occasion of the yearly religious pilgrimage. The following day, after the pilgrimage is done, the crowds disappear at 4pm and the old couple are left to live out their days with a few cats and dogs.