Processing.
This photo is taken about 15 minutes before I got robbed.
Let’s call it processing. Putting the photos up that I took, just before getting robbed. Because that’s what happened in this ocean of party people. Luckily my hands were literally on my cameras, so I’ve still managed to get back to my temporary home in San Telmo with my photo gear still complete and in my possession.
I should have known, or actually I knew. Only minutes before, one of the people I was with even warned me. But then the crowd swole… People were oppressed while the masses kept moving and I was in the middle of it.
On a side note; I don’t like crowds. I don’t like lots of people together and wouldn’t go to a festival just for fun. It scares me. If it will help a story though, pushes forward a project or if it offers me a chance to good images…? I’ll go.
So there I was, about a head taller than most people around me. Working to keep my balance, while holding on to my cameras for dear live and in the mean time fighting an internal battle not to panic. And just as quick as the waves of moving people who lifted me of my feet had come… I could breath again. Things calmed down, I had space and I could breath. And I was robbed.
Party over. First I was looking around, trying to make sense of it all while scoping out my surroundings to see if I could see… I don’t know: him. The person who did it. I couldn’t believe it. I was furious. In hindsight I think it’s a good thing that person was long gone, ‘cause I don’t know what I would have done. After that my dislike of the mass, of festivals in general peaked. I wanted out. I wanted to go home. Not home in San Telmo. Home, home. I felt lonely, unsafe, unseen in what had just happened and basically I felt like the saddest person standing in between (literally) half a million partying people.
Once I got out, I did something I still can’t wrap my head around; I put my cameras in my big camera-backpack (safely secured on my chest.) and I went back in. I went looking again, searching again. Not long though. I guess twenty minutes. Long enough to, having found a way out again, feeling incredibly stupid. Now it was time to get angry with myself. How could I have let this happen? In all my years of traveling - I’m getting old - I have never experienced this. Funnily enough I was so aware of what I was feeling. Walking to my little retreat, I could first feel more anger towards myself. While at the same time explaining myself that these people are trained to do this. It’s their freaking job and they’re good at it. I feel how I talk myself down from self-anger. Only to notice I started fighting to keep the welling tears inside until I’ve made it to my makeshift safe-place. There I call home. Not only to The Netherlands, but home; the person I needed.
What followed I guess, was a night of practicalities. My biggest concern is that these days a phone pretty much has your life on it. I know it’s stolen to only be emptied and sold again, but the fear is still there. Changing passwords, blocking my sim, checking Apple’s “Find My”. Of course the phone was turned of. So I had to make sure that if they switch it on again, they can’t do anything with it but reset it and sell it as a perfect good, new-ish Iphone 13pro.
So why this blog? I guess to process. I stayed in bed till 12.30 feeling Remi. Then I realized I still have a full week in Argentina. I have more work to do, a project to finish. I figured that writing this episode down, would be the only way I would get myself to download the photos from camera. Actually use them.
Maybe this is the last of the five grieving stages: acceptance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in the merry go round of emotions. I’m trying to keep remembering the advise I tried imposing to the world in a podcast last year… Philosophical introspections that I have vocalized many times before and after that moment: “If it doesn’t kill me, it’s going to be a good story” or “Everything in life is borrowed for a while.” Thoughts I still believe are very much true… But looking in the mirror this morning, addressing myself, I have yet another reflection for myself: Good advise has it’s time, mr know-it-all 🖕!
PS. I would sell short all the beautiful people that I saw on this day, if I wouldn’t post any other photos. And besides that, it would still defy the purpose of writing this blog…. Processing. So even though I did go ‘home’ after it al happened, I did so with some beautiful images that shouldn’t be deleted without being seen. So here’s a small impression of what was a mostly good day.
