José Arce
Writen by Dario Orrico
Photography by: Ana Laura Vargas | León Vargas | Dario Orrico
We must see as if expecting something unknown to happen, without thought, not peering at a simplified narrative.
To listen is to welcome silence.
Neath the Castle on the ridge there’s a colorful hut. José is the hut proprietor.
Rental surfboards, buggy boards, wet suits, and surf lessons, to raise money for a new skatepark.
A private skatepark, so we can keep drugs out.
José is someone who would save up money to buy a few surfboards, wet suits, and bug-gy boards, work in the blazing sun every single day, to put together funding to buy the bricks and mortar to personally build, that is, to do the labor of building a skate park at the mercy of donations.
The kind of person who teaches local kids to surf for free, and acts as a kind of the unofficial lifeguard, the only one on Cerri-tos beach actively aware of the swimmers and neophyte surfers.
There wasn’t much to do around here as a kid. I want to keep the kids out of trou-ble, apart from drugs and alcohol in a town with not much else to do.
My family owns a farm. I tend to the farm now. We grow mangos and papaya.
I’m going to build the skatepark on this farm. It’s nice here. I’d like to turn it into camping grounds. We come out here and shovel after we wrap up at the beach.
Water titters down from the mountains through the oldest aqueducts all the way to this seemingly indifferent farm. Somehow providing what is needed, where it’s needed.
Pescadero has a sort of emptiness to it.
Emptiness is a complicated state to negotiate.
Luckily the complicated void is put off via means provided by the sickening infra-structure that’s flatlining life in the name of progress measured unironically in terms of gross domestic product.
It’s good to know progress has made it all the way out here to save and disassociate these souls.
May substance titter down to the seemingly irrelevant and provide what is needed, where it’s needed.