Boys and girls help to ensure a livelihood

Most of the families in Los Hurones ensured a basic diet by planting allotments, raising goats, hens, turkeys and pigs, and by hunting, fishing and gathering. Many children gathered berries from myrtles, strawberry trees and the buds and fruits of dwarf palms. José Pan (Algar, 1948), aged 14 in the photo, remembers many anecdotes about his escapades to find food:

«At the age of 7 or 8 we would go to the countryside, the dogs caught rabbits, we looked for asparagus, and we set hooks to catch birds. Some neighbours had hens and when they clucked we would take the eggs. There was a pear tree there and we used to pick the small green pears before anyone else did and leave them in straw to ripen. And we caught catfish and bogues in the river by exploding a can with carbide stone, which we had for lighting the house».

At the weekend the kids gathered firewood, loaded it in a cart from the works and pushed it up the valley. For the brazier they would also collect coal dust which was left lying around the coal ovens in nearby ranches. Until they were old enough to work as hands or apprentices, some children worked in nearby ranches weeding out the maize plantations or herding the family goats.

For their part, girls had to do more basic, less fun chores: kneading, fetching water, cooking, doing the dishes, sweeping the hut, doing the washing or looking after younger children. When their mother worked far from the hut or house, it was even more important that they undertook these tasks. And they started these female jobs at an early age: Paquita Pan, aged 15 in the photo, started working as a servant at the age of 10 in engineer Vicente Aycart Benzo’s house.