Ecuador: Otavalo Boy Harvesting Barley

Otavalo boy helping his family to harvest barley near the Andean town of Otavalo, Ecuador.

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Why, In So Many Parts Of The World, Are Women Stronger Than Men? Because They Do The Heavy Lifting

Pounding millet near Boundiali, Ivory Coast.

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Ivory Coast: Abidjan Market Scene

African women never leave their small children out of sight. They carry them on their backs wherever they go and to whatever task that awaits them. A thoughtful fruit vendor at the market of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, installed her baby girl inside a water-filled basin. It’s hot in Abidjan, and the baby happily throws water at herself.

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Ivory Coast: Climbing Saves You Money In Abidjan

Watching a soccer (football) game in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, from complimentary  perches.

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Argentina: Life And Death Of Patagonian Sheep

Patagonian sheep enjoy great social life, much space to roam over, and plenty to eat. But, as in some human societies, at some time in their lives they must go under the knife. And sooner or later they end up as roast meat. 

This post includes 12 photographs

A gaucho herds sheep back to an estancia’s white buildings, visible as white dots above the horse’s head along the San José Gulf, at the tip of the Valdés Peninsula. They are needed there to be sheared.

Under a heavy sky, along fields of wild yellow flowers, a gaucho is herding sheep back to a corral in Patagonia’s Chubut Province.

Gauchos marking lambs's ears. To rapidly distinguish between capons, ordinary females, and females reserved for breeding, the men cut capons’tails midway and those of ordinary females entirely. They let the breeders keep their tails.

In Patagonia’s Valdés Peninsula sheep await their turn to be shorn of their wool.

 In Patagonia’s Valdés Peninsula gauchos are chasing sheep towards the shearing shed.

Inside the shed of a Valdés Peninsula’s estancia, a dozen men are shearing sheep. Their shears come attached to the tentacles of a motorized machine built like a carousel. Legs tied, other sheep lie around awaiting their turn.

Shorn sheep returning to pasture.

Preparing wool to be packed.

Waiting for more wool before closing the bundle.

Stacking bundles of wool for pick up.

Marking bundles for pick up.

A Puerto Madryn-based veterinarian, owner of the large Valdés Peninsula hacienda shown in some of the above photographs, is sharing a barbecued rack of sheep with his two gauchos and me. He helped me find the two horses I used in a 1984 Patagonia crossing whose story Smithsonian magazine published.

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Argentina: Scenes Of Old Patagonia

The blue light of dusk colors a familiar scene in the small Patagonian town of Gualjaina, in the Chubut Province. A gaucho is saddling his horse to ride back home. His pack horse is loaded with a small bag of small purchases he made. Though he had a few drinks in the bar, behind the left door, he won’t put anyone’s life in danger on the way back. With ill luck he will only fall off his horse.

The small Chubut town of Gan-Gan was even quieter than usual the 1984 day I shot this picture. It was Election Day and the bar was closed. However, I made my way inside and found a noisy smoked-filled back room crowded with very happy drinking gauchos who invited me to share the fun. The men sitting outside may only have been a false boredom front.

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Argentina: Rugged Men Of Patagonia

Cattle ranch foreman

Sheep herding gauchos at the end of a long hard day

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Argentina: Typical Patagonia Scene

At dusk, having tied their horses to a tree, two Mapuche Indians converse with relatives they came to visit near Paso del Sapo, a hamlet lost in the middle of the Chubut Province of Argentina’s Patagonia. Completing the composition, the dog that followed them there is waiting for them with the same patience as their horses.

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Argentina: Patagonian Gaucho

 Sheep farmer, or gaucho, of Patagonia’s Chubut Province. Because of Patagonia’s tempestuous wind he could not wear the typical black hat of the Pampa’s gauchos to the north. Only headgear he could pull down to his ears.

     In 1984, reaching the crest of a hill while riding a horse across Patagonia between the coasts of Argentina and Chile, a sudden head-on blast made my horse pirouette 180 degrees as if it had been a mere flag.

     The tempestuous wind apart, the journey went like a charm. At the end of most 12-hour rides a lonely gaucho in charge of a sheep farm treated me to wine and a succulent barbecue. And my saddle, like his, was cushioned by a thick sheep skin.
     The wives of the lonely gauchos in charge of the sheep estancias lived in distant towns, forced there by the need of their families’ children to attend school.

Buried under their own wool, corralled sheep await the shears.

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Africa: The Long Wait For Customers

The first eight following photographs were shot in 1973 

Street vendors in Parakou, Benin.

The clothes vendors in this photograph were listening to the music of a small portable radio. A water peddler was walking down the road in search of his own sale.

A street vendor takes a nap while her colleague watches the store in Benin’s Cotonou.

Here, not far from the previous small business, is another one. Selling on the streets is the courageous alternative to doing nothing when unable to get employment.

And here, just across the street, as is evident in the previous shot, is a more sophisticated and alluring small business. The large words say:

     Do you want to be elegant like us? Then get shod here by Quo Vadis  
(the owners wrongly used the French word “galant” for “elegant”).

     The small yellow sign says: High Shoemaking Fashion. 

     An unfinished basket out front is waiting for last touches.

Expert barber waiting to give his next haircut in Porto Novo, Benin.

This poor kid in Niamey, Niger, may have skippd school to help his family put some food on the table.

Here, near Bertoua, Cameroon, monkeys for the pot, wearing white price tags, were being offered to passing motorists. Tails tied to heads helped buyers to conveniently carry their purchase home like a handbag.

Delicious organic tomatoes being sold in a small corner of the sprawling Kumasi market of Ghana in 1992.

Proud owner of a store specializing in the sale of kente cloth, hand woven in wooden looms in Bonwire, Ghana, and elsewhere among that country’s Ashanti.

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