When I arrived in Argentina I headed straight for a small town called Jacobacci out in the rural steppe of the Rio Negro province. I had a wonderful time there the previous year and I was excited about seeing my friends again, but I was also starting to wonder what exactly I was going to photograph. It was a relief to not have an assignment or a deadline to worry about, but still I found myself getting anxious about the project.
From what I had heard, many ranchers were giving up their land because they had lost too many sheep. But what was I supposed to do, go find one of these people and photograph their lives? I can barely hold a decent conversation in Spanish so how was I supposed to embed myself with a random group of strangers? I was hoping I could just start with the people I already knew and something would miraculously work out.
So when I got off the bus in Jacobacci I called my friend Fermin Franco. He offered to put me up and I gratefully accepted with my pile of gear in tow. His wife Lily also gave me a warm welcome but their kids Camila and Valentin kept their distance at first. With a language barrier it can be especially tough to relate to kids. Fermin and Lily were patient with me and could slow down or re-phrase a question. The kids were not so forgiving and quickly gave up on me to move on to more interesting things.
This barrier began to break down thanks to Valentin’s interest in bugs. He spent a good chunk of his free time in the yard searching for critters and on this level, we related to each other very well. Before long, he would come running to find me with every new discovery yelling “Hanand! Does it bite, Hanand?” (The kids all pronounced my name “Hanand”) I somehow became the resident bug expert even though I didn’t know what to call any of the critters in Spanish.
Valentin (left) and his buddy show me a bug they excavated with a spoon
Ok, so maybe there is still a little boy in me somewhere, but how was I going to connect with a 5-year-old girl? I had gotten used to Camila blowing me off when one night, just as I was winding down, she just marched into my room and decided we were going to play with her rocks. She dumped out the sack she was carrying and introduced me to each one. These were no ordinary rocks. They were actually stone tools she had picked up on her grandmother’s ranch. They varied from meticulously crafted arrowheads to roughly cut scraping and grinding stones. And there were dozens of them, made by the Mapuche and Tehuelche people who first inhabited the Patagonian steppe. This turned into our nightly ritual. Camila would show up just after 9pm with her marbles or balloons or cars and we would make up games until she went to bed.
Camila shows me part of her collection of stone tools (this is only one of many bags)
Hanging out with Camila
Camila playing with fireworks outside of her home in Jacobacci
Before long, Camila and Valentin introduced me to all the neighborhood kids and I got to join them as they goofed around. They all wanted two things from me: to talk in English and to take their picture. Other than from the TV, none of them had ever heard English spoken before. One day, I showed up at a soccer game just as the kids were getting tired. When they saw me with the camera everyone perked up again, trying to show off their skills.
Valentin (left) and his friend Santi playing soccer in an empty lot covered in volcanic ash. Santi's family fled Jacobacci to escape the ash but he came back for a brief visit
The kids cooling off in the backyard pool
I had given Camila a magnifying glass for her birthday and she would wander around with it held up to her face. As soon as I took a picture and showed the other kids, they all wanted a picture too. After I had earned the trust of the little ones, I decided was time to venture farther afield…
Everyone wanted a picture with Camila's magnifying glass
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