San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
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The Rodeo
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Robin and I stop for pollo-to-go at a
storefront, where racks of splayed birds rotate about a gas-fired grill. With chicken in
hand we wave a green taxi down. At the rodeo grounds the stands are full. Men heave
buckets of cervezas, trading empty bottles for fulls. A mariachi band, twelve musicians
strong, stand at the top of the stand and play polkas. I wolf down my chicken and my corn
tortillas while watching one of my workshop mates shoot a portrait of a cowboy and horse
in the ring. His head is right at the railing level, a foot away. His features are a young
and soft mold of what seems destined to become a chiseled angular face. His perfect
triangle nose could be a proof for a trigonometric theorem. He wears a simple white
sombrero, and his horse is a pretty tan. If I where in Ireland I’d head straight for the music, so why not here? In my fractured Spanish (my vocabulary is in the low double digits) I try to communicate . A man in the stands hears me fail, and intervenes as a translator. "What do you want to hear?" asks the guitaron player. Before I leave I warn them, "You know, there’s a photography workshop in town. You’re going to see a lot of the likes of me about." Robin motions to me. "The real shots are over there, on the side," she says. Ten women in voluminous green and yellow skirts, riding sidesaddle, are getting organized. Boys are practicing their lariets. Robin wants to talk horse, learn what kind of animals these are, especially the ones that looked like Andulasians. They’re quarterhorses, but two hands smaller, she finds out. The serious spectators are on the wall, watching the cow roping. A horse rider and a cow race down a courseway. In seconds he’s got a rope on the hind feet of the poor creature and everyone screeches to a stop in a huge cloud of fine dust which then blows through the stands. One out of 20 caballeros manage the feat. Robin, who I’ve never mistaken for a rabid animal rights activist, is not immune to the casual cruelty of the event. "They’re harassing these poor bulls for no good point. All the animals, they’re terrified." And as I was talking with one of the musicians, he casually reached out to pat the ass of a young woman squeezing by. She glowered, he smiled. Violence and machismo, as unremarkable as sunshine. But I am grateful and a little surprised at the openness of my subjects. "You want to photograph? Come over here." I get addresses, pass out cards. The musicians, the kids with their ropes, the costumed women, all engage me and allow the liberty for me to shoot. My last time in this country was nearly 20 years ago, when I was much more shy and scared. Mexico intimidated me then. I only shot cactus that trip. This time, I’m changed. I’m not afraid to be seen. And I find, now, an open and gregarious culture that apparently doesn’t mind this intrusive gringo. This is a people that makes eye contact. Even without Robin’s intervention skills, I connect, ask permission, and make my photographs. And we have an exchange that I hope is, in some measure, as gratifying to my subjects as it is to me. |
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