LivingPolo.com

This Friday, December 11th, 24 year-old Victoria Aguirre’s book “A la sombra de un caldén” was shown to the public for the first time, on the stand of the Asociación Argentina de Polo’s premises at Palermo. She is part of the fifth generation of the Heguy family.

A good amount of people, most of them members of the family on which the book has been based, was present to attend this sort of recognition towards a family that, as the authoress said, “despite being well-known within polo circles, they stand out due to a whole lot of other things.”

The presentation began at 6:30 p.m., local time, with light food being served, and a photograph of all the Heguy family members was taken, only possible to take with certain cameras, due to the huge amount of people it included.

The Heguy family´s history began in the Argentinian province of La Pampa, south of Buenos Aires, and that is where Victoria Aguirre began her talk. In a very emotional way, she thanked the fact that she had been “allowed to write about La Pampa, which is the place with which I identify myself, and I wanted to write about this family, in which this place stands out, with its eternal horizon, which was the main reason due to which this book was published,” to which she added her gratefulness towards her family and the entities and sponsors which allowed this to happen, plus “all of those people that in one way or another sat down with me under the shade of a caldén.”

After Viky had spoken, several members of the family said some words and spoke about varied anecdotes and stories which had been included in the book, in all cases mentioning the efforts of the first generation of Heguys who emigrated to La Pampa, to work the land, with the family finally having become what it is nowadays.

Among those present were the Heguys which form part of Indios Chapaleufú II together with David Stirling (Jr.). In the midst of some beers and eats, “Pepe” Heguy said that he feels “a great pleasure of being a part of this history,” and although he has not read the book, he knows it “is spectacular.”

“Up-country (in Argentina), in La Pampa, it is a very important family, and later on it began to be so in Buenos Aires, because we came to play polo here, but they were first well-known over there, and that is what is most remarkable,” Pepe said, while being listened to by a considerable audience at Palermo. He also stated that the Heguys “are a very united and large family, and it is always a pleasure to form part of these things.”

After that, Victoria Aguirre spoke with LivingPolo.com, talking about how she had prepared the book. During the interview, the young designer and photographer, who is now also an authoress, said that “all these people who have come (to this presentation) means this is a total success, but the real success is to have brought together all the family, those from La Pampa and those from the city,” and she added that “the fact that they are all here together is the most important thing, more than the book itself, this has been a great reunion of the Heguy family and that was the real success.”

In what refers to the publishing of “Bajo la sombra de un caldén”, Victoria said that she began wanting to dedicate her time “to books for traditional families of this size, and the first thing I thought of was related to La Pampa, as I very much like horses and all the people who know how to ride them,” which obviously led to her thinking of the Heguy family, her family.

“I began with this two years ago with photos, data, interviews in Intendente Alvear (the village in La Pampa where the Heguys first established themselves), and I began writing for the first time in my life, luckily it turned out well,” said Victoria, who is now going for more, as she already is preparing a book “with pictures only of La Pampa, so as to show people the southern part of the province, a place which nobody knows and which by means of the photographs I was able to make more known, and of course there are always the expectations that another large family might come up, so as to continue writing (laughing),” was Aguirre´s commentary.

Finally, the authoress said her work “is mainly a homage to our great-great-grandfathers.”

And so with light drinks, beers and typical food from Argentina, the soirée continued to go ahead, beautifully prepared and attended to, and it was really worthwhile because the centre of attraction is an interesting book with a very original style. Those who like polo are already expecting to get to know about traditional families in future books.

“Bajo la sombra de un caldén” is to be sold to those people who place an order, by directly contacting the authoress. To contact her, phone 0054 911 51047023or 0054 11 4737 1822; or e-mail vikyaguirre@hotmail.com. The book’s price is $450 pesos.