Corral De Bustos

Corral de Bustos, population 11,000, is a small town in the pampas of Argentina. Papa Mignolo grew up there, my grandmother still lives there, and we are related to roughly half the town. The playground adjacent to the central plaza is where my brother received a huge electrical shock, and where I split my chin open on a see-saw^[1].

In December of 2011 I went back to visit with the boy’s Canon EOS-1 VH (using Kodak 400 TX film). Though the trip is just a few months removed, the black and white film does an amazing job of manifesting fading memories and capturing the omnipresent nostalgia I feel for Corral de Bustos, even when I am there.

This gate, and the wall it is attached to, is the only thing remaining of the house where my father grew up. My grandfather would smoke cigarettes by the gate and watch the world go by, while my father and his cousins played in the street.

The old train station adjacent to downtown Corral. Buses now bring people in and out of town at laughably odd hours.

This is probably the second most common sight in the pampas. The first? Everyone and their mother playing soccer.

Monsanto has largely taken ove the agricultural landscape with soya monocrops.

Old grain silos.

Downtown Corral de Bustos. I swear this was taken in 2011, not 1970.

Should you ever find yourself in Corral de Bustos, go to here. We ordered lunch and dinner from La Cuisine for over a week and everything was mouthwateringly-amazing.

This is my grandmother's house (the small part; the large building in back is a warehouse). She's lived here ever since I can remember, and not much has changed. Even the photos on the walls remain the same...

The night of the great asado. I was so full of meat and wine I forgot to take photos, but this happened about an hour before and still serves to trigger my memory.

1. Temporally the events are rather far apart (about 15 years), but causality-wise they intricately entwined. ↩