No doubt that traveling to the West Pampean desert and meeting Maruca and Cochengo Miranda, has been one of the most exciting experience of my professional life as a photographer.

My friend and Oscar nominee ethnographic filmmaker Jorge Preloran had just completed the film "Cochengo Miranda" and in 1986 with the sponsorship of the  La Pampa Department of Culture, he invited me to that province to spend some days in El Boitano and photograph Don Cochengo and Maruca in their ambience. Preloran  had the intention of publishing a book with the  "décimas" (lyrics)written by this well loved artist. I filled out  a lot of paper work until I got the sponshorship of the Institutions I had applied to fund my trip to such a remote place. My request included a van from Vialidad Provincial to get to Santa Isabel. In order to locate them geographically, I must say that you need to cross the country from East to West and El Boitano is located in a desert area were two provinces meet: South Mendoza and West La Pampa, at that location is where the  Patagonia region begins

The chofer ended up being a charming young man who showed himself amazed that a woman "all by herself" and with just her photographical equipment- had headed off for such  A remote area.

As we walked through the pampean desert, the vegetation got lower and thorny, and the earth thin and white got into the tiny places that the closed windows permitted.

In the late afternoon, under a glowing sun, we stopped in the dusty path to open a gate.

I offered my help to keep it open while he reached the path that leads to the road.  I observed a skeptical smile but he accepted my help and thanked me. When I went down, a cloud of bugs  assaulted me. I rushed to the van to put on some mosquito repellent cream, my guide found it hilarious! Cochengo assured me that the cream was "food" for these little bugs. From then on, everything was a joke about my condition of " portena" (a person from the "port" of Buenos Aires).

When we got to El Boitano and Maruca and Cochengo came out, a strong flow of cheerfulness and affection was immediately established.

I stayed 4 days there, but the time lost its dimension.

The guide of Vialidad returned back to Santa Rosa and said he would come back to pick me up, for I had my plance ticket already booked for Buenos Aires.

Rightaway I adapted myself to their lifestyle. We would wake up at 7, drink mate and then Don Cochengo would go to work with the animals.

I followed him with the camera, spyed on him, registered him and he wouldn't say a word about it. He had like pride of "being" within a great community.

"I' m the echo of the earth and the chant of independence,  my acnestors are creoles  who see the open frontiers without war and in this deserted pamper where science doesn't develop and  conscious men with uncovered foreheads are born."

SPANISH:

"Soy el eco de la tierra y el canto de la independencia, soy de aquella descendencia de criollos que no se aferran, de esos que sin hacer guerra ven las fronteras abiertas y en esta pampa desierta donde no avanza la ciencia nacen hombres de conciencia con la frente descubierta".

 
In the quietness of the dusk and with the paused rhythm that the greatness of nature imposes, we used to sit under the roof to chat and drink mate. Maruca had already moistened the earth and the garden which in spite of the year long drought and thanks to hear care, had given some weak vegetables and  flowers. The two dogs and the cat lay near. I took the camera and began to shoot.

Plain horizon, desert,  only towards the west, the hills of the Andean Pre-cordillera began to appear.   Silence, only interrupted by the hands of the mill that turn  some moos from a few cows and Cochengo's voice. His memories:  his grandparents had lived in the "Fortin" of Malarque and were burnt alive by the Indians. He remembers that the Atuel river- which after a long inter-provincial conflict between La Pampa and Mendoza  which was  won by the second, dried up turning into desert what had been a green valey in the past.

This happened long ago!
He says: " In those times they suggested making a dam in the Big Valley a very big dam in  the hills of San Rafale up there, no? in Mendoza. Marvelous! That's a sea. Then, up to the north,  they made the Nihuil, which is a great dam  that I never get tired of flattering. And that's how the River Atuel dried up".

"I don't forget those years they were so nice and beautiful. My old folks were proud and happy for what they had achieved, the fields were flowery because of the abundant rain, the farmers were prosperous"

When it got dark, the gas lamps were turned on, and while Maruca cooked, don Cochengo kept on telling stories,  I recorded him and with camera in hand I followed his gestures, his looks  but I must admit that many times I didn't dare shoot. I felt I couldn't break that intimacy. Surely I missed great pictures but living those moments beat anyd expectations. I felt like a child -for me everything was a discovery-

Many years have passed, and the book hasn't been published yet. And unfortunately don Cochengo will not see it. He would say:

" Us the poor don't forget our customs and I believe that they will not be forgotten, the creoles don't forget. Because if that work existed many years ago, it can never finish.. never! As long as creoles exist. Now, when the country is dominated by the "gringos", who knows, it will be a different thing, right? it will changebut as long as there were creoles, who knows if we are going to give place.. because we are going to fight and combat theses things for our own traditions!"

Susana Mulé
www.susanamule.com.ar

Translation by Caroline Mulé