Life Goes On (Part 3 of 7)

I only spent a week in Jacobacci but my days quickly began to follow a pattern. Without meaning to, my daily schedule turned into the following:

10am – wake up, sort gear (notice the lack of sunrise images….I am not a morning person)
11am-1pm – wander the streets looking for images
1pm-2pm – massive lunch
2pm-4pm – nap, sort gear
4pm-6pm – sort more gear
6pm-9pm – wander the streets looking for images
9pm-10pm – playtime with Camila
10pm-12am – long dinner usually with friends, neighbors, extended family
12am-2am – sort gear, stare blankly at wall

You will notice I spent a ridiculous amount of time just packing and unpacking my stuff. I had barely enough room in my luggage to fit all my stuff so any time I needed a particular piece in a hurry (which was a lot) everything got dumped onto the floor. Fortunately, my hosts never seemed too upset about this. At the same time, I was trying to keep the ash from destroying everything so I was constantly cleaning, fixing, and reorganizing my equipment. I think some part of me enjoys just fiddling with my gear because I would spend hours doing it. Then, with a pang of guilt, I would realize I hadn’t taken any pictures that day and would rush out desperately looking for something to photograph. Miraculously, this system worked really well.

If I got one or two nice frames by lunchtime, my anxiety and guilt would ease and I would reward myself with a nap. One day, a water truck passed by and I immediately knew I had to photograph it. Jacobacci is 6 years into the worst drought in a generation and here was this enormous truck spraying water on the street. On one hand, it is the most effective way to keep the ash from blowing around, but on the other it seemed extremely wasteful since it would just evaporate by the next day. So I started jogging alongside and snapping away. I followed it for maybe 6 or 7 blocks before the driver finally stopped and gave me a look that said “what the hell are you doing?” I explained I was just taking pictures and with a shrug, he continued on. That’s when it occurred to me that shooting pictures from inside the truck might be a lot more interesting. So I chased the driver down and asked if I could ride along. He paused for a moment to consider, then waved me up.

The town of Jacobacci uses these water trucks to keep the ash from blowing around

I started by photographing him behind the wheel, but that wasn’t working, so I tried hanging out of the window. That’s how I snapped this frame of kids playing in the spray.

Photographing kids from the passenger side window of the water truck

I stuck around until the truck ran out of water and we had to drive out of town to fill up again (see title photo). I learned the town sprays 100,000 liters of water on its streets every day. Since no one knows when the ash will stop falling, it seems absurd to fight it with such a limited resource. If you look at the title photo, you’ll see a gray haze on the right side of the frame. That’s the ash cloud moving in to envelop the town. Even once the volcano stops erupting, wind will continue to remobilize the ash for years to come.

When I arrived in Jacobacci, I happened to choose the perfect host. My friend Fermin was not only incredibly friendly and helpful, but he also knew everything that was going on in town. He introduced me to the local newspaper journalist, took me to rugby practices on the outskirts of town, and got me a private tour of the town’s museum.

 Rugby practice in a dust storm.  The tiny ash particles get kicked up with the slightest breeze, but that won't stop the people of Jacobacci from going on with life as best they can

When a group of doctors came down from Buenos Aires to help out, Fermin was able to introduce me to the woman in charge. Because of the eruption, the Argentine government sent one of their mobile health clinics to help out. The trucks were only staying for three days so people came from all over the region to wait in line.

This mobile health clinic consists of three trailers sent from the government to help the people of the rural Rio Negro province deal with the ash

  

Inside one of the trailers, technicians churn out hundreds of pairs of glasses per day to give out to people who otherwise could not have afforded an eye exam

Families wait their turn outside of the medical trailers, trying to protect themselves from the ash.  The long term effects of ash exposure are unknown, but in the short term it is causing eye and lung infections as well as skin problems. 

After photographing the medical trailers, I ducked into the gym next door to change lenses and accidentally stumbled into a big group meeting. It turned out to be a community support group that was discussing their feelings about the ash. The psychologist leading the session invited me to join them so I sat and listened as people described their experiences. It felt like the mediation lessons we had in Montessori school. I couldn’t believe that with no introduction, I could be so accepted by a group of total strangers.

A community support group organized by a psychologist who had arrived with the mobile health clinic

People wrote down what they were feeling and the group discussed how to move forward

I spent 5 days with the Franco family and I never found that displaced rancher I was originally looking for. I realized I should be trying to make sense out of the life around me, not illustrating some preconceived notion about the effects of the ash. The ash was no doubt changing people’s lives. When the wind kicked up the kids would stay inside to watch TV and play video games instead of running wild in the streets. Jacobacci didn’t get as much ash as towns closer to the volcano, but it got only the finest dust, which covered everything and was impossible to clean. The worst part is that the health consequences of long-term ash exposure are basically unknown.

The kids were asked to participate in the support group as well

Despite the grim stories I had heard from my friends in Bariloche, I realized this story was more about human resilience than it was about suffering or displacement. Yes some ranchers had left their land and families had moved out to the big city, but those people didn’t define this community’s response to the eruption. Instead, what I saw was people supporting each other and figuring out how to go on living a normal life.