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Radio in rugged
Peru
by
Don Moore
From
the city of Cajamarca a rough dirt road winds up the
Peruvian mountainside and then over a barren 4,000 meter
high plateau where travelers may be greeted by ice or snowstorms
any day of the year. One hundred and twenty kilometers,
or about eleven hours later, the road winds down the other
side of the plateau and passes through the town of Chota
before continuing up the Chotano River valley to the little
crossroads town of Cochabamba fifty kilometers beyond. From
here it another whole day's journey to the paved coastal
highway and the city of Chiclayo.
But branching off the main road at Cochabamba is a one-lane
dirt track of cutbacks and blind curves clinging to the
edge of a mountainside. No cars make this trip; only pickup
trucks and rickety old freight trucks, their rotting wooden
frames rebolted and wired together in so many places that
they squeak and squeal their way up the mountain like a
chorus of haunted staircases. At each curve the driver honks
his horn to alert oncoming vehicles. When two trucks meet,
a few shouts are exchanged, gestures made, and finally one
of the two backs up, its driver praying to the saints that
one more time he will avoid the sheer drops. When a wide
place is reached, the other may pass. Finally sixteen hours
and 200 kilometers beyond Cajamarca, the mountain is finally
crested and in the valley below, amidst a green plain of
fields and meadows, one catches a first glimpse of Cutervo.
Since
1980 more than one hundred shortwave stations have started
in Northern Peru. Many don't last for long, as financial
realities or technical breakdowns take their toll. But the
stations keep coming. The epicenter of this mass move to
the airwaves has been the department of Cajamarca. Once
a breadbasket of the Inca Empire, it has become home to
over forty radio stations, some heard around the world.
Every town, and even some villages, have or have had their
local radio voices. La Voz de Cutervo is just one of these
many stations.
Cutervo is a typical Peruvian town of white adobe and cement
block row houses roofed with red clay tiles. Life here revolves
around the small shrub-filled central plaza where housewives
stop to chat on their way home from the market each morning.
After lunch, men gather to pass the bottle and gossip until
the midday heat has lessened and its time to return to the
fields. After school and through the evening, teenagers
take over the plaza to half-heartedly do homework and flirt.
The
town's Catholic church, its interior decorated with
colorful local woodworking, dominates the plaza. On the
other sides of the plaza are the municipal building, several
stores, a pharmacy, a restaurant, and the three story Hotel
San Juan. The hotel's guests are usually government workers
or traveling salesmen. Cutervo is far from the tourist route.
According to the townspeople, a hardy Hungarian adventurer
in the 1960s was the only foreign visitor before the author
and his wife wandered in. The only place in town to stay,
the hotel's green cement-block walled rooms with unpainted
cement floors are complete with a sink, chair, coathook,
and a non-too-wide double bed and go for the bargain price
of 85› (US) double occupancy. (That 85› doesn't
pay for much cleaning, nor hot water!)
Remote
as Cutervo is, modern conveniences such as potable water
and electricity have arrived. Ice cold water is piped down
the mountain and into most homes by a municipal water system.
The water's temperture stays ice cold when coming out the
tap because few can afford gas water heaters.
Electricity is more a nightly treat than a convenience.
Becuase bringing kerosene to remote Cutervo is expensive,
the municipal generator is only turned on from 6-10 pm.
For the wealthier families this means a few hours of television
from the one Chiclayo station that is received via a mountaintop
repeater. To the poor majority, electricity is a bare light
bulb or two hung from the kitchen ceiling.
Paved streets and sidewalks grace the center of town, but
a few blocks from the plaza, sidewalks end and the streets
become rough cobblestone. Closer to the outskirts of town,
the cobblestones give way to dirt or mud streets, depending
on the season.
Unlike
many towns in Peru, Cutervo was neither an ancient Inca
city, nor a Spanish colonial center. For centuries only
a few Indian peasants enjoyed the year round spring-like
climate of warm days and cool mountain air nights. Around
the beginning of this century, settlers from the Cajamarca
area discovered the fertile valley snuggled among the Andes
mountains at 8,000 feet. Realizing its climate was perfect
for growing sugarcane, coffee, vegetables, and potatoes,
they established farms, and in 1905 founded Cutervo. With
plentiful markets for its produce in coastal desert cities,
the town prospered.
Today the people who live in Cutervo, walk its streets,
own its shops, and listen to its radio stations still depend
on agriculture to keep their small town's economy going.
Everything not consumed locally is sold in Chiclayo. Everyday,
freight trucks lumber the mountain, their open topped wooden
frame backs loaded high with produce.
Besides transporting vegetables, the freight trucks serve
another vital function. Few people own cars or trucks, and
with only one bus a week to Chiclayo and back, hitching
a ride on the back of a freight truck is the easiest way
out of town. The average person leaves Cutervo sitting atop
several tons of potatoes. At least hitching back in the
empty trucks isn't quite as bumpy!
Like
any small farm town, Cutervo is not exciting by anyone's
standards. The best the town has to offer for entertainment
is a movie theater that shows karate flicks and cheap westerns
when they are available - which isn't very often. In season,
there are bullfights in a drab cement bullring on the edge
of town. At other times sports fans content themselves with
walking to the local high school to watch teenage boys play
soccer. Overall, the most popular past time in Cutervo is
chatting with family or friends while listening to one of
the local radio stations.
To an outsider, Cutervos might seem to be real animal lovers.
Not only are there many dogs and cats in the streets, but
a peek in the front door of many houses reveals a half dozen
or more guinea pigs playing on living room floors. Cuterve¤os,
however, will be quick to point out that those aren't pets
- they're supper! For centuries the guinea pig, or 'cuy'
has been a delicacy to Andean peoples. Skinned and fried
it tastes much like rabbit, and is higher in protein than
beef or pork. And, as the people of Cutervo know, it's a
lot easier to raise a herd of cuy in the living room than
a cow or pig!
Located
in a long row of adobe brick buildings half a block
from the plaza, La Voz de Cutervo
looks like the homemade radio station that it is. Under
a handpainted multicolored wooden sign are a pair of decaying
seagreen doors leading into the office.
A 10x15 foot room, the office has white adobe walls, and
a high ceiling of rough plaster and huge wooden beams thick
with cobwebs in the corners. Going inside, to the left is
the secretary's 'desk' - a green pegboard counter, its top
covered with red cloth. Two wooden chairs are the only other
furniture. The wall behind the counter is decorated with
beer company calenders and Latin American pop music posters.
Sheets of yellow legal paper are taped around the other
walls at eye level. Typed onto these are the titles of most
of La Voz de Cutervo's record collection, divided into catergories
by song type: huaynos, pasillos, vals, ranchera, moderna,
and infantil. Listeners use these to pick out songs for
record dedications. Above the song lists is a generic black
& white clock (the kind found in any American schoolroom);
a few cheap-looking landscape paintings; and, the station's
pride, an excellant 15x18 inch photograph of Cutervo, taken
by a local photographer.
Along the back wall, two plain brown doors marked "Locucion"
and "Audio Master" lead into the 8x7-foot studios. In the
middle of the main studio, 'locucion', is a table with a
homemade console, two turntables, a cassette deck, and several
microphones. Records, mainly 45s but some LPs, line shelves
on the back wall. Separated from 'locucion' by a fiberboard
wall with a large plate glass window is 'audio master' -
a special studio with just a microphone for reading the
news and doing interviews. Pop music posters decorate both
studios.
Station
manager Julio Cesar Sanchez is young and enthusiastic
about his work. Soon after its founding in 1980, he began
working for today's crosstown competition, Radio Ilucan.
Two years later, feeling he had the experience needed to
make the big move, he founded La Voz de Cutervo. Dedicated
to making his the best station in town and undaunted by
the numerous station failures in the region, Julio believes
that with hard work, radio broadcasting in these small towns
can be profitable.
Running the studio feedline through town, Julio put his
antennas and transmitters on a hilltop outside Cutervo for
better coverage. So that his station could broadcast all
day, not just when the municipal power was on, he installed
a generator. Car batteries charged at the transmitter site
power the studio during the day.
With an ear for quality, Julio runs his one kilowatt AM
& SW transmitters at about 700 watts for better performance
and to avoid overmodulation. He is building a fifty watt
FM transmitter to give Cutervo true high-fidelity. Julio
says to be the best he needs FM for listeners in town, AM
for the surrounding villages, and SW to reach the more distant
towns. His would be the first FM station in the department
outside the city of Cajamarca.
Julio's
most experienced employee, and the only one to have
worked outside Cutervo, is Miguel Angel Quispitongo Suxe.
Miguel is one of many itinerant radio announcers of northern
Peru. Like peddlers of old, these announcers journey from
town to town looking for a station in need of their experience
and well enough off to hire them. Leaving Oyotun, his hometown
in Lambayeque department, Miguel first wandered out to the
Amazon region and found work at Radio Moyobamba. Growing
economically like never before, the Peruvian Amazon is a
center for both oil exploration and cocaine production.
The region's boundless opportunity convinced him and another
Radio Moyobamba announcer to quit their jobs and found Estacion
C. Bored of Moyobamba, the partners soon sold their station
to Porfirio Centurion, another former Radio Moyobamba announcer.
After drifting a bit, Miguel finally ended up in Cutervo.
As much as he enjoys his work and the similarities of Cutervo's
mountain valley climate to his hometown, Miguel feels that
the opportunities to make real money in radio are in the
Amazon, where he plans to eventually return.
The biggest challenge for La Voz de Cutervo, or any small
town radio station in Northern Peru, is getting enough income
to survive. Local stores are so small they can't afford
advertising much and big national and international companies
such as T¡a department stores and Coca-Cola rarely
spend their advertising dollars outside major cities. Therefore,
most of the station's income must be generated through the
sale of what are called 'comunicados' or 'servicios sociales'.
These are everyman's party line in rural Latin America:
where telephones are nonexistant, radio stations have taken
their place! Comunicados are simply personal announcements
that listeners pay the station to air. In Cutervo the going
rate is about 20› (US) for three airings. The main
reason that shortwave is used so extensively in this region
is to allow comunicados to reach distant towns. A long as
there is no other reliable method of communication, shortwave
will thrive in Northern Peru.
All
towns are far apart, if not in distance, at least in
time. Mail service may take weeks. The only way to keep
in touch with family members in places near or distant is
via radio. Maybe Juanita married a man from Chota. Mama
hasn't seen her since the wedding and decides to go visit
the newlyweds for a few days. Having the good sense to realize
that Juanita will want a little notice, Mama sends one of
Juanita's younger siblings over to La Voz de Cutervo with
a comunicado to warn Juanita and her husband of the upcoming
visit. "Juanita Arana de Valencia in Chota, your mother
will be coming to visit you next week on Tuesday or Wednesday.
She hopes you and your husband are well and looks forward
to seeing you." It doesn't matter if Juanita doesn't hear
the announcement. One of her neighbors or friends certainly
will and they will pass along the news. In fact within a
few hours everyone in Chota will know that Juanita's mother
is coming for a visit!
Alternately, maybe Don Eduardo wants to send a message to
the workers on his coffee plantation, but doesn't have the
time to make the four-hour round trip today. He has told
them to always listen to La Voz de Cutervo while eating
lunch, so he simply drives over to the station to buy a
comunicado.
Indeed,
the lunch hour is the best time to hear comunicados. People
are most likely to listen to the radio during mealtimes,
so that's when the stations usually air them, in long strings,
maybe broken up by an occasional song. The next most popular
times are dinner time, the early evening, and breakfast
time. Even people not expecting a message listen. After
lunch, mother exchanges gossip with the neighbor who was
tuned to a different station. The men at work don't wait
any to discuss the days 'news' either.
The record dedication is also an important source of income
- La Voz de Cutervo didn't type up those song lists just
to be nice! For 20 cents (US) the station will play the
record of one's choice and read an accompanying announcement.
Its a great way to wish happy birthday to relatives and
friends, or for a young man to publicly express his affections
for a certain young lady. "Jorge sends this romantic message
by Julio Iglesias to his one and only love, Luisa."
In
a country where the average family lives on $30-$40
(US) a month, it is difficult to depend on comunicados and
record dedications. Making it tougher in Cutervo are two
competitors, Radio Ilucan and Radio Cutervo. With three
stations vying for listeners in a town of 6,000, each station
tries to play the best music and get the most interesting
comunicados to keep people tuned in.
Of course keeping listeners means staying on the air, and
equipment problems can be disastrous. Owners hope breakdowns
can be repaired or at least jury-rigged with local know-how.
If costly imported spare parts are essential, a long overland
trip to Lima must be made, putting the station off the air
for weeks. Sometimes expensive parts put a station off the
air for months, even years, until the owner can scrape up
enough cash for repairs.
La Voz de Cutervo has been fortunate that none of these
potential disasters have snuffed out the station's dreams.
In 1986, they changed their shortwave frequency from 4965
to 5661 khz, leaving them free of interferance. Although
their weak signals are rarely heard in North America, the
best time to try for them is from 0000-0400 UTC.
This
article was first published in the 1989 Passport
to World Band Radio under the title Peru: Radio Where
Foreigners Never Go. The published version was shortened a
little, slightly edited, and (of course) had the typos corrected.
Any errors in the text below are mine. |
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