“A game?” His index finger slowly traced a circle in the puddle of beer on the bar. “Partly, yes, of course. It's fun, I won't deny that. But at the same time, it's so much more.” My new friend was dead serious: deep down, he felt like a cowboy.
MORE OR LESS IN THE FAR WEST
It was an early spring day in 2009. I was hanging at the bar in the Wichita saloon in Meulebeke, Belgium. Hardly the Wild West, but still a fair way into West Flanders. My conversation partner clearly didn't need more distance from everyday life.
You could find him here almost every weekend. Stetson hat jauntily on the back of his head, a Colt 45 clearly visible in his holster. He patted his chest. “This is who I really am,” he said.
He drained his glass and kicked a bar stool with his heavy boot. “Another one?” The bartender, who looked just like him, slid two beers towards us. He took a sip and looked at me seriously. “No, I mean it. This is home for me.”
The café was packed to the rafters. All the customers - except me - wore 19th-century Western outfits. I was surrounded by cowboys, trappers, and Native Americans.
Quite a few soldiers in uniform too, both Southerners and Northerners. They exchanged jokes and amiably toasted each other's health. Here in the town of Meulebeke, the American Civil War had clearly not caused a schism.
“If you ask me, I was born more than a century too late,” my newfound drinking buddy confided. Then he was swallowed up by the crowd. These were words I would hear often in the coming weeks.
The Wichita Ranch was my first stop on my journey through the Belgian Far West. I was here to meet the Arizona Rangers, a small group of enthusiasts of the American West. The welcome was warm (and accompanied by more than one glass of beer).
The Rangers were one of a handful of clubs obsessed with daily life in the 19th-century Far West.
What they did was part reenactment, portraying a historical period, and part something much deeper. For these people took their hobby very seriously
“If you really want to understand what we do,” John (his Western name, of course) made clear, “you have to go camping with us.”
I was enthusiastically invited by Harry and Jennifer, a young couple that were the driving forces behind the Rangers. Thanks to them, I gained access to several Belgian Western clubs in the coming months. Their members gathered in forests and rented meadows to do what they loved most: live as authentically as possible as cowboys and Native Americans. Not for an audience, but for themselves. And yes, without electricity or running water (although, to my great relief, there were always modern toilets available).
For several weekends, I shared joys and sorrows with the group. I met plumbers and bankers, teachers and roofers, mechanics and factory workers. In the microcosm of the club, they all took on different names: Jan was Hank, Jean-Pierre was Pete, Joris was called White Feather.
All of them, on Saturdays and Sundays, briefly forsook modern life and transformed into their Far West alter egos.
They lit campfires, trudged through mud in moccasins or cowboy boots, trained in tomahawk throwing, participated in army drills, and fired blanks with their guns.
There were no horses in sight (unless in a nearby farm's field), but all of them paid great attention to their outfits and sleeping quarters. Someone proudly showed me the teepee he had worked on for months. Just transporting the heavy poles was always a challenge, but missing a camp weekend was not an option for him. Because he left no doubt: if he had had his way, he would have been born 150 years ago on a North American prairie. Coming here was the next best thing for him.
But the picture had to be perfect, down to the smallest detail. Cell phones, laptops, and other modern-world artifacts were carefully hidden. There was disdainful whispering about the one man who wore his revolver in a Hollywood-style holster on his hip.
This alternate world was as diverse as its participants. I met families who had thrown themselves en masse into Native American culture, divorced fathers who were here only because their sons loved cowboys, and lone trappers who had so deeply immersed themselves in their Western persona that no one could remember their real names. Each had their own, sometimes poignant, story.
A woman, nearly in tears, told me how here, in this bizarre world to outsiders, she had found the sense of safety that she had lacked all her life.
Another spoke about the illness he had had since childhood and how his weekend persona allowed him to feel like the man he couldn't be from Monday to Friday. As strange as it was, once I was in the midst of it, I couldn't help but bask in the coziness of this local version of the Far West. Everyone knew each other.
The daily life - however unreal - was temptingly simple. Stoke a fire, cook food, have a drink with friends, and the inevitable evening sing-along. Perhaps we could all use a time-out in this small universe now and then.
Text & photos: Geert Huysman
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