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Josegladys Gonzalez boarded Voepass flight 2283 with her four-year-old son and mother, beginning a long journey that would take them to her native Venezuela and then to Colombia.
But her dream, and the dreams of everyone else on board, were shattered this week when the plane crashed in Sao Paulo state, Brazil.
The family, who had immigrated to Brazil, were killed when the plane fell from the sky and caught fire in the town of Vinhedo on Friday with 58 passengers and four crew members on board.
When González arrived in Cascavel, a city of 350,000 people in the southern state of Paraná, four years ago, she was 25 and her child, Jocelyn, was just a few months old.
There she found a job as a supermarket cashier, her Brazilian friend Thaiza Evangelista told AFP.
According to United Nations statistics, in recent years, as Venezuela has encountered a series of political and economic crises, the Gonzalez couple and 7.7 million people have fled Venezuela.
But the family found the cost of living in Brazil high, so after a brief stop in Venezuela to process paperwork, they decided to move to Colombia.
“They have friends (in Colombia) so they don’t have to pay for housing, because the hardest thing here is the rent,” said Evangelista, 52, who helped the family with final preparations for the trip.
– ‘Last message’ –
An animal lover, she convinced friends to bring her six-month-old dog, Luna, along and even raised money to cover the extra costs.
That was partly for little Jocelyn, she said, who “won’t stop crying because he didn’t want to leave her behind.”
Evangelista helped them put together a complicated travel plan: They first flew to Sao Paulo, then took another plane to Boa Vista in the north, then took a van to the border town of Pacaraima — and finally a 12-hour bus ride to their hometown of Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela.
“She sent me her last message at 11:16 (14:16 GMT) saying everything was going well and they were about to board the flight,” Evangelista said.
But then, to her dismay, she began receiving text messages about a plane crash en route to Sao Paulo.
“I am desperate … the list of victims has not been released,” she said by phone from Cascavel, where her friends and neighbors gathered after hearing the tragic news.
Brazilian airline Voepass later confirmed that passengers on Flight 2283 included Josgleidys Gonzalez and her son, her mother Maria Gladys Parra and their dog Luna.
– ‘A fighter’ –
Her friend said Josegladys Gonzalez was “a warrior,” adding: “She was well-loved. It was very difficult to remain gentle and honest and have integrity after going through so much.”
Neirelis Orta, 33, a Venezuelan who also immigrated to Brazil and has lived in Cascavel since February, works at the supermarket with González.
“She had been saving money to get documents for her son back in Venezuela,” Horta told AFP.
“It makes me sad – because you have a plan, a trip, and you deprive yourself of so much, of something to eat or a piece of clothing that you love, and then your dream ends…
“We are devastated and we have been saying that she did not deserve this. She had so many hopes and dreams.”
“It’s horrible.”
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