These public schools in the Andes Mountains of Argentina are true frontier outposts: the few scattered windows looking out to the civilized world that are available in the far off northwest corner of the country, home of the indigenous Kollas.
The boys and girls that attend them are isolated in their communities and cut off from the urban civilization of an otherwise fast-pace developing country. Through teachers and books they get an imperfect glimpse of that remote urban culture. For some, emigration to the cities is a future option but for many their future is tied to their land, their families and their ancestral routes. A few very powerful routines dominate the daily existence of these students: football for boys and long hair for girls function as status symbols replacing those consuming goods and articles that dominate teenage life in the cities of the globalized world.
Los Andes landscape
Girls in class.
School library.
Teacher grades exams.
School starts with flag hoisting.
Schoolgirl.
Plurigrade classrooms.
Boys in class.
Futbol at 3800 mt above sea.
Girls comb their hair at boarding.
Girls comb their hair.
Girls read at boarding school.
School cook.
School corridor.