La leyenda de Omer and Rayen: 10 Years and Counting

Ten years ago this month I was in a far-away place with my wife and two small children. In the style, or at least hope of a style of the writing hero C.S. Lewis, I wanted to a write a story or series of narratives with noble characters that achieved their dreams and goals of aspiring to a higher clime.

To entertain and possibly inspire. I was down there in 2005.

I thought for the last few years (2009-2015) that I written 11 or 12 chapters of that story; when I finally found it in my attic this month I discovered seven. Perhaps that is all that ever were...

I re-read them, some of them to my children, these ten years later. They may or may not stand any test of time, but they may at least measure a few things about me, the father writing about fathers, etcetera.

There are supposed to be 52 in all, based on the total number of provinces in Chile, the place where the family traverses in the story.
La leyenda de Omer and Rayen, (between 400 and 500 AD).

Each chapter is named after the province in which the story takes place, starting with ...

Chapter 1: Arica [AR-EE-KAH]

     Omer was a smart boy who loved the stars, all the strong and fast animals, and to see from the tops of the tallest mountains.  Rayen was his sister, who also loved animals of all kinds, but especially the soft and gentle ones, and the kind mothers who gave milk and love to the young ones.  She also really loved the beautiful colored clothes, the bracelets and beads, and the shiny trinkets that were made from precious metals and brilliant stones.

     Omer and Rayen had moved with their family very north to a desert near the city of Tacna, that would someday be part of southernmost Peru.  It was a high plain where they lived and it almost never rained, but a river flowed southwest from the mountains and helped them grow many good foods and vegetables to feed the clan and the cattle and sheep and chickens.

     But guess what happened one day?  Sure enough, a long-running chasqui came from the south to tell the difficult news" Omer and Rayen's grandfather was very sick and needed to bless all his family before he died.  And he lived at the bottom of the world in a place called Grevy Left Eye.  It was a small island where half the year it was too cold to get there and there was only enough food for one hundred people, and even they lived on the other Grevy islands.

     So Omer and Rayen family prepared all their things to go to the end of the world.  They were sad to go so soon and they were going to miss their cousins and friends but they were anxious to see their beloved grandfather named Eid Al-Miyad.  They were lucky to be able to see him before he went to see Wakan Tanka in the land of Great Hunters.
     So they left Tacna and went down from the sierras and went to the village of Arica, which would someday be northernmost Chile.  This was a coastal town and Omer and Rayen marvelled at the great vast ocean to their right side.  The waves crashed all night long as they tried to sleep after so much walking.  They hoped to see Eid Al-Miyad, but they had many moons to go.  And they said that now in October, the planting month, that they may make it to the bottom of the world by April, the month of good harvests.

END OF CHAPTER 1: ARICA [The Legend of Omer and Rayen]

Because there might be 4-5 chapters missing, I have asked my 14 year-old daughter to write those chapters for now, and then we will keep going with it from there.