Appearances and Disappearances in South America and Places

    I was thinking about places nine hours from Antofagasta lately. A lot of people have never heard of that northern city of Chile to begin with.

AHN - TOW- FAW - GAWS- TAH

    Most Americans that I know who know about it--this somewhat hard to pronounce and very remote- from-everywhere-else-on-the-planet city-- or even those who mention it, it is because of missionaries who go there for the church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known to millions as the "Mormon" faith. I know people who are from there and have lived there. Most of them are members of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, or Mormons.

    I have a friend named Dee there now. I will call him that. Well, he is not in that city exactly, but rather far from it, according to his father, who has a hard time pronouncing the name Antofagasta. AHN TOW FA GAS TA where his son is assigned to live in for the next two years of his life. Dee is currently living nine hours from the biggest city of his mission. The northern regions of Chile, which are dominated by the driest desert in the world, are an isolated part of the world that most people will not visit, and many people will not even think about. Ever. 

    I am thinking about it, and wondering where Dee has been living. Perhaps he has met some people that I know? I lived far south of there, but in three different times I managed to meet my share of people. Some became friends, some I consider for life as such. Others, acquaintances, but I cherish most of them. A few of those I knew have made it to the United States. Jimena, Miguel, to name a few.

    Is Dee mixing with a few peeps from Christmases past? I met a brother of an associate in Reykjavik, Iceland, last February! Many things are possible.

    The Bigger Picture

    Chile has a history that many know about. From 1973 to the 1980s many thousands of its citizens disappeared under the sometimes vicious dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. I arrived in Chile in the summer of 1990 (January), when he was in his last months of power. The country has enjoyed a great deal of stability and prosperity since, which I find remarkable and refreshing. It has been 33 years of more or less good living for the citizenry! There are still pockets of poor and poverty. There are still complaints of the middle- and lower-income people suffering privations. There are new waves of Haitians and Venezuelans moving to Chile to escape from their previous terrible nations and leaders, or lack of leaders, and the country is not perfect. But it is doing much better than Ecuador at present, and the aforementioned Venezuela. Even Argentines and Uruguayans go to Chile to make a living.

    The desaparecidos are sometimes found in random places, but most of them will never be encountered. Some were dumped from helicopters or planes into the ocean, which happened even more frequently in Argentina during the "Dirty Wars", from 1977-1983, roughly. More disappeared in Argentina, perhaps six times more victims than Chile. In a shorter period of time.

    Latin America has problems: it happens in Mexico, Central America, across the entire region to include the Caribbean. There are the wars, the coups d'etats, the political and military polemics that arise. Power and its temptation come up often. Drugs and its production cause a lot of violence and strife. If the government and its officials do not deter and stop it, then the gangs and cartels carve out their pounds of flesh among the populaces. Violence and mayhem surround so many.

    In Chile, not as bad, comparatively. Dee should be okay, most of us believe. He will be all right. High, and dry. And safe. Farther from the biggest city of the Atacama Desert, and farther from the madness of a modern world where men and boys, and some female accomplices are looking for trouble and too often find it.

    We hope that all our loved ones are found. Do not disappear, we pray and hope! And if they do go missing, like my former mission companion Marco Rojas, of the suburb of Santiago, El Bosque, may he return with love and honor from his unexplained hiatus. Perhaps he made his way to North America, or Europe, or Australia. I think I remember him talking about staying down under, if he could find a place to resort to. My friends like Juan and others that knew him do not where he went to; this as of 2005.

    Disappeared.

    My friend and co-worker Paula at the subsidized high school where we worked was from a small town in the south called Curacautin. COO RAH COW TEEN. In my months in Angol in 2005 some people found human remains in her home town, buried in the walls of a house. The local news publicized this discovery, decades after that unfortunate disappearance. Some bodies and mysteries will be solved, unlocked after years and decades of the unknown. Found once more. Finally discovered.

    Where are all the remains of the dead? Some were hurled into the Cantara of Deuco, they say, a pit that is filled with water hiking distance from Angol, where we lived as a small family. People say that the water goes down very far, perhaps a kilometer or more. Maybe there are skeletal remains down there. Would the rings and watches and other personable belongs have been removed, taking away remnants to identify those who were disappeared by Pinochet's soldiers?

    Where else are the disappeared? Will the teeth be left over for future scrutiny and identification?

    And what of the vast Southern Pacific, where Nobel winner Pablo Neruda, and before him famed Gabriela Mistral poetically waxed on the waves and the ever-pounding currents and moods of the wide and deep expanses? Do bones or orthodonture float or sink into and across any of its immense floors and profound depths?

    Where in Chile is Dee? I have been asking for months. Safe to say, he is alive and well. I cannot say the same for all of Chile's friends and compatriots.

    But I think and wonder about them now. My and your reflections, our perusing of books and history, our questioning and reflecting in today's world, can bring new lights and resurrect the memories and lives of so many. Dead and gone before their time, we will track down and bring back the presence of our friends and would-be associates, in the long tunnel of time and existence.

    We salute you, comrades and laborers, protestors and common folk, rich and poor, dreamers and idealists. 

    We send sweet greetings to Dee wherever he may be as well. Fare thee bonito, y tiempo muy lindo, hermano.