Twelve-year-old Birgit
asked me to photograph her with Paula, her favorite cow. She works as a cowgirl
on her family’s vast hacienda, or cattle ranch, in the coastal lowlands of Ecuador’s
Guayas Province. She’s the same I showed on my yesterday’s post, riding a horse
with a sheep across her lap.
I spent several
days photographing her and her 14-year-old sister Belén at work. First, during
the dry season, when they spend much of their time on horseback. Later, during
the rainy season, when their family’s land sinks under Andean torrents, and moving is now done mostly
by canoe.
By then the family’s
men and their cowboys had moved most of the hacienda’s 400 zebus, nearly100 sheep, and many horses to higher
ground for several months. They had left behind only two or three cows to keep
the women with milk.
I’m planning a
children’s ebook of the girls’ lives. I’ll title it
Young Cowgirls in Ecuador: A Time for Horses, A Time
for Canoes.
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