Tio Beto’s carnival caller’s voice carries over the road, through the trees and into the house where we are drinking our first hot tea of the morning. His accent hits as low as the gravel path he walks across and as high as the clouds he walks beneath. Tio Beto is 56 years old, unmarried and lives with his parents. He is as tall as a wooden orchard ladder, always has a good appetite and he will prove it later, when we butcher a lamb in payment for his and a few others help in shearing our sheep. Tio Beto is also very fond of “Chicha”, a homemade hard cider that always accompanies hard work in this part of Southern Chile.
We have about 75 sheep to shear. It’s November and as summer is coming, the sheep must be sheared so that they don’t overheat, loose weight and bring less of a price at market. There will be four men helping today along with my father in law, Don Rigo. All the men cut a dark and hardy silhouette against the early morning sky but something about Tio Beto keeps my eye. Our four dogs stand alongside him: they seem to know that he has suffered as only they have and they reconcile with his spirit. The men stand beside the sheep coral, visualizing the work to come, talking and gently joking with one another. We will invite them in for breakfast, as is the custom, but first there is the 10 minute greeting where all adjust to one another’s presence.
Our ranch or “fundo” is in Southern Chile, just where the Patagonia begins to get serious. We are at the drier edge of a wet, damp towel that never dries. Geographically speaking the Patagonia begins with the south side of the Bio Bio River, about 175 miles to the north. Argentine Patagonia is marked, ever so slightly by rolling hills that are covered in the high grasses that make their beef world famous. Chilean Patagonia is quite the opposite; like the bigger orphan, Chile scoops up all the rain from the Antarctic, leaving little to pass over the Andes to her parched cousin, Argentina. Moving south, every kilometer becomes more stubborn as the trees and forests, hold hands tighter and closer. If Patagonia were a hardware store, it would be a place where the thickest hinges, the hardiest screws and the longest ropes could be bought.
It will take two days to shear all the sheep. One by one they will be pulled from the corral and cajoled to the waiting shearer. These men will not use electric shears but a type of large, tweezer looking scissors made from special tempered steel. The tool is bent in a way that its mouth remains open to gobble up what comes and waits simply for the worker to apply pressure against its tension. After 20 minutes the animal is released into our pasture at the road; each one scampers away to be with the others, wondering about this new feeling of lightness and freedom.
The work begins without hesitation as is the custom for all people of the Patagonia. The flesh of legs and the brawn of arms, like roots and branches, are only here and useful for a short time. The Patagonian is genetically un-able to hold back against the work at hand. The sun passes overhead, marking time against the effort; only darkness tells him to return to his bed and tomorrow is another day. Dark eyed cautious, he rejects all that will delay the labor of his hands; this is life and he does not worry if he won’t be here the next day.
I am delayed from leaving the house in phone calls, notes and a shower. When I leave for errands that the bank impatiently waits for they have already set free 2 sheep each and are well into their third. I cannot resist with my pair of old Nikon F-3’s, capturing on emulsion coated plastic, the power of their work. All of the men are bent on their task but something of Tio Beto pulls me more to what he is doing. He is Patagonia of a certain type. These men are not afraid of their work and their pursuit of it is as thick, tenacious and strong as the mud that holds back the ox, as clear and without care as the sunny air that shines in the summer. They naturally seem to ask for more to do like humid grass asks for the sun or more rain and the like a clown that pleads for more than one child as his audience.
For the next two days the shearing continues. Patagonia brings the animal and man closer together; so close that their chests heave and fro to breath in the rawness of the land at the same moment. They all talk together as they work, joking, sparring and challenging one another from one topic to another. When they are not working, the conversation is heavy. The words, like anchors, break through the surface and push to the bottom, searching to find something to hold onto; they seldom miss their mark. There is a lot to talk about.
Patagonia is a land of bone and flesh and it’s visceral; it clings to everything. It is not a place where it will all be okay in the morning like some Treasure Island ballad. The thickness of trouble lasts for days if not weeks and seasons. I imagine that for an accident in any other place where blood is cleaned up from the ground; in Patagonia the trauma of death and loss is simply rubbed into the earth or better, left alone to make its own way to where it needs to go. Like an amoeba, Tio Beto, pulls back and forth and adjusts himself, as a matter of course, to the feelings of the men working beside him.
I was only there the one day and, in fact, missed the lamb asado they had on the afternoon of the last day. I would arrive each evening, well after dark, and was treated to the stories of the day. Tio Beto dominated the conversation.
It turns out that with the photos I took, Tio Beto is convinced his image will be broadcast across all news venues and he will be invited to the United States. He has commented each day about the specifics of what his trip will entail and how he will be honored. Really, if the powers that be could come to know Tio Beto, it would be exactly as he has said.
Tio Beto is shy but the first one to want to tell a story. Ever hungry, like the dogs that accompany them, Patagonians search out for contact as a relief from the elements. He is aware that he will not live forever and wants his say while he is here. I frame him in the camera and he almost changes shape. I tell him to pretend like I am not there and he responds in the unmistakable sing song, rhythmic Patagonian accent.
“shhwaaa…how can I do that?…baaaaa…” He says, painfully aware that I continue to take his photo.
His first worry is that he will need to fly on the Chilean National Airline, Lan Chile(Lineas Aereas Nacionales de Chile) and that the Americans might want to fly him on one of their own. He announces strongly that he would be ready to go but hedges when it’s brought up that it’s a long flight. He is patient and patience runs deep in Patagonia; not unlike a dog that naps in the sun or searches for that perfect place in the shade.
“Beto, what will you eat?”
“I am sure that they have food to eat on the plane but it will be old and stale…and expensive…”
He is imagining a street cart as he later explains it.
“So, what will you do?”
“I will bring one of my turkeys with me and butcher him on the plane, I will have fresh things to eat, while everyone else will have what the plane gives them…I know, they will all… be jealous…”
Really, Tio Beto, I think we are all, already jealous.
Hi FiveBlocks. Tio Beto is one of the most moving, living, breathing pieces of writing I have ever read. I am truly moved. I know Tio Beto, and a hundred others like him and when you wrote, The thickness of trouble lasts for days if not weeks and seasons,” I found I had tears in my eyes. If you publish this (paper form) I would buy ten or more copies to give to my children, and grandchildren so they can understand why I live in Patagonia.