and blankets.
It took a week to reopen the airport, and by that time the air was fetid with death. The world’s press arrived with the international rescue teams who had been delayed by red tape and chaos. When aid eventually trickled in, reporters had no shortage of horror stories to back up an international appeal to help victims of the crisis, though hardened correspondents familiar with the region knew the greater part of disaster funds would be siphoned off to private accounts in Switzerland.
On the ninth day amid the carnage and destruction, a single item of good news emerged. A little girl had been found alive and uninjured by a navy ship making a final sweep along the coast. The sailors onboard had nearly abandoned the search at nightfall when they heard crying. Throughout the night the crying continued as they swept searchlights back and forth over the sea, bumping bloated human and animal carcasses aside.
Finally, at dawn, they located the source of the sound in a fishing boat caught between a logjam of smashed timber and a dead mule. It looked empty, but two young sailors climbed aboard to look. Then they gave a shout. The girl, perhaps two or three years old, naked except for a chain looped round her neck several times with a medal strung on it, was found trapped under a nest of fishing nets too heavy for her to escape. It seemed unbelievable that she had not perished from exposure or been drowned by a wave, but she was crying and sucking her fist.
The story of the little survivor appeared briefly in the press, with pictures of the child, the boat, the medal, and the two grinning sailors. But news has a short shelf life and by then the foreign press had moved on. There were wars and celebrity divorces to cover elsewhere. The little girl disappeared into a local orphanage, the only record of her existence a sheaf of yellowing press clippings.
In the Shadow of the Andes, Spring 1984
A year after the
Mano del Diablo
, a battered car with “Taxi” painted on its side wound its way into the oldest part of the old provincial capital, which was still scarred by the disaster. Finally the potholed streets narrowed too much for the car to continue. The driver stopped and pointed. A middle-aged American couple got out of the backseat, shading their eyes against the sun to look around. “They said it was in the old part of the city,” the woman said, looking at her map, “and this part looks old, alright. It’s practically falling down.” She was a plump lady in a neat Liz Claiborne skirt, matching cardigan, and low-heeled pumps, and she patted her coiffed hair nervously.
Her husband, a large man perspiring in a button-down shirt, bow tie, and plaid sports jacket, adjusted a camera around his neck—a cheap one, because he had been warned to leave his expensive one at home. He clutched a guidebook and, incongruously, a large teddy bear sporting a pink bow under his arm. He took his wife’s elbow protectively. “Come on, Sarah-Lynn. Hang on to your pocketbook,” the man muttered, glancing at the driver who was slumped back in his seat rolling a cigarette.
The
Norte Americanos
were conspicuous in that neighborhood. Men in vests and women in cheap print dresses watched from balconies that sagged on peeling houses and peered from lean-tos beneath crumbling arches. Ragged children with big bellies crowded to peek through iron gates. The couple pushed past old cars and donkeys and beggars, and rattling cars whose brakes screeched and whose drivers spat and shouted insults at each other, banging the sides of their vehicles for emphasis. The couple skirted makeshift stalls selling fried fish and
arepas
. A prostitute on a broken chair in a doorway called to them in mocking Spanish, raising a cackle of laughter from her companions. Women shouted, babies cried, children were scolded or slapped. The streets stank of frying oil, urine, tobacco, sweat, exhaust fumes, rotting garbage, animal dung, and fear. In the
It took a week to reopen the airport, and by that time the air was fetid with death. The world’s press arrived with the international rescue teams who had been delayed by red tape and chaos. When aid eventually trickled in, reporters had no shortage of horror stories to back up an international appeal to help victims of the crisis, though hardened correspondents familiar with the region knew the greater part of disaster funds would be siphoned off to private accounts in Switzerland.
On the ninth day amid the carnage and destruction, a single item of good news emerged. A little girl had been found alive and uninjured by a navy ship making a final sweep along the coast. The sailors onboard had nearly abandoned the search at nightfall when they heard crying. Throughout the night the crying continued as they swept searchlights back and forth over the sea, bumping bloated human and animal carcasses aside.
Finally, at dawn, they located the source of the sound in a fishing boat caught between a logjam of smashed timber and a dead mule. It looked empty, but two young sailors climbed aboard to look. Then they gave a shout. The girl, perhaps two or three years old, naked except for a chain looped round her neck several times with a medal strung on it, was found trapped under a nest of fishing nets too heavy for her to escape. It seemed unbelievable that she had not perished from exposure or been drowned by a wave, but she was crying and sucking her fist.
The story of the little survivor appeared briefly in the press, with pictures of the child, the boat, the medal, and the two grinning sailors. But news has a short shelf life and by then the foreign press had moved on. There were wars and celebrity divorces to cover elsewhere. The little girl disappeared into a local orphanage, the only record of her existence a sheaf of yellowing press clippings.
In the Shadow of the Andes, Spring 1984
A year after the
Mano del Diablo
, a battered car with “Taxi” painted on its side wound its way into the oldest part of the old provincial capital, which was still scarred by the disaster. Finally the potholed streets narrowed too much for the car to continue. The driver stopped and pointed. A middle-aged American couple got out of the backseat, shading their eyes against the sun to look around. “They said it was in the old part of the city,” the woman said, looking at her map, “and this part looks old, alright. It’s practically falling down.” She was a plump lady in a neat Liz Claiborne skirt, matching cardigan, and low-heeled pumps, and she patted her coiffed hair nervously.
Her husband, a large man perspiring in a button-down shirt, bow tie, and plaid sports jacket, adjusted a camera around his neck—a cheap one, because he had been warned to leave his expensive one at home. He clutched a guidebook and, incongruously, a large teddy bear sporting a pink bow under his arm. He took his wife’s elbow protectively. “Come on, Sarah-Lynn. Hang on to your pocketbook,” the man muttered, glancing at the driver who was slumped back in his seat rolling a cigarette.
The
Norte Americanos
were conspicuous in that neighborhood. Men in vests and women in cheap print dresses watched from balconies that sagged on peeling houses and peered from lean-tos beneath crumbling arches. Ragged children with big bellies crowded to peek through iron gates. The couple pushed past old cars and donkeys and beggars, and rattling cars whose brakes screeched and whose drivers spat and shouted insults at each other, banging the sides of their vehicles for emphasis. The couple skirted makeshift stalls selling fried fish and
arepas
. A prostitute on a broken chair in a doorway called to them in mocking Spanish, raising a cackle of laughter from her companions. Women shouted, babies cried, children were scolded or slapped. The streets stank of frying oil, urine, tobacco, sweat, exhaust fumes, rotting garbage, animal dung, and fear. In the
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