Toyi's War Experience Chapter III

Friday, September 01, 2006

Okay we are back, 1980, I was going to school near my previous home, now moving to grany's house in the very heart of the city, Granny is the baby sitter of almost every single grandchild she has, working hard with the food and blessed with her miraculous bread multiplying hability. What news were out there? Radio Venceremos goes in the Air with full streight by the end of 1980, a Revelious explosion was planed to erupt on January 10, 1981 and Radio Venceremos was going to be an influential key for that revolution to happen. Radio Venceremos was the tongue of media because they dared, El Salvador media was domained by the Government and there was little to hear besides the coolness Era and Music & style of US.

Radio Venceremos in the other hand was a radio that operated outside the country for security but moved later into the most hit by war ES Oriental area of El Salvador (The zone were I lived) their task was to let people know about laws, massacres, military movements, and keys for revolution, it was an outlawed Radio Station and didn't have its own AM or PM frequency dial, they operated on any other excisting frequency, in other words you could just move your radio knot from left to right and find it in a different spot than what it was yesterday. They were known as a phanthom Radiostation because they never stayed in one place for more than a day, it was dangerous because Government was in the hunt for it, Radio Venceremos had its home anywere in the mountains, their operators carried all the equipment on their backs, they also played banned music; has you hear ES government was used to ban any music that would encourage rebelion, under ES law military or any guard could kill you if they ever found you listening "Specifically named" music or from certain bands like "

Here the Translation of "Casas de Carton"

Very sad sounds the rain hitting the cardboard homes
very sad live my people inside the cardboard homes
Here comes the worker, dragging his feet & tired of carrying his suffering
look how much he has suffered, look how heavy is his suffering

Up on the mountain he leaves his woman pregnant
Going down the mountain there is the city were he loses his morning
Today is like yesterday and today is a day w/o tomorrow

Very sad sounds the rain hitting the cardboard homes
very sad live my people inside the cardboard homes
Kids with the color of my land, with the same scarves &
wealthy in worms and that is why
very sad live my kids inside the cardboard homes &
How happy live the dogs in the home of the exploiter

You will not believe it, but there are schools for dogs
where they receive education, so they don't bite the newspaper
but their owners, since long long time ago keeps biting their workers

Very sad sounds the rain hitting the cardboard homes
very far walk the hopes from the carboard homes.

Here was our neighborhood and neighbors before we moved to my Grany's house.


Here is a close look of our house before we moved to Grany's house.
























Okay, it was banned to listen to this Radio station, but the town dared to listen to it behind doors, why? because Radio Venceremos was always informing about movements, and since town killings had occured, they
felt a bit protected knowing about military movements, Also and as it is common, Guerrillas had spyes in Military troops as it was backwards, everything was at risk and everyother force had to be careful with their moves, Radio Venceremos operated at certain time of the day and I remember my Grampa will start walking towards the farwall of the house around 5:00PM everyday and start looking for the frequency all over the dial, setting his very old radio anthena to get a bit of a decent wave.

I remember that experience always gave me goosebumps, I looked at him quietly from far away and I was afraid of the radio opening song, at some point I didn't know that the radio was banned until few years later that I had a bit more understanding, but even back there, just to see him looking for that radio station really generated an effect on me and was a horrible feeling, like I sensed that he was doing something that he was not supposed to.