Yesterday I told you the story of my long-lost portable transistor.
Consider this as the continuation of that story, but more particularly, how it turned into a radio romance with a working woman.
When the fascist military dictatorship took over the country of my birth, thousands of young activists like me were forced to retreat from the raids, arrests, and murder in the streets, to the relative safety of the underground movement.
We continued to resist the dictatorship in the many ways we knew how – not always organized, but hey, most of us were youngsters barely weaned from the comfort of middle-class homes.
I myself was 16 going on 17: a veteran of countless street fights with the security forces, true, but still basically a young boy caught up in the furious eruption of a social volcano.
Like thousands of others, either I had to leave home or risk arrest by the military regime.
With the help of my parents and fellow activists – including my sister and brother, who were also being hunted down and had to go underground – I spent my first months living in an isolated hovel. I had to, to evade the secret police while I pursued my clandestine political work.
Like I said in my earlier blog, that National Panasonic transistor radio became my only source of news and musical relaxation during the time I stayed there.
The hovel was part of a ramshackle wooden farmhouse surrounded by luxuriant but unkempt gardens, fruit trees, and a high fence. The occupant was Soledad – a dusky peasant woman – and her two kids.
She was actually my aunt – a young first cousin of my mother – who grew up in the hinterlands before Mama took her in. She worked in our family grocery during summer, and returned to her mountain village for the planting and harvest seasons.
Aunt Soledad was a dusky beauty, with shiny brown sun-burnt skin and tough limbs like the mahogany wood from our forests. She was also, to put it politely, simple-minded. Her dream consisted of going back to the farm and raising a family.
Her dream did happen, but not in the way she liked. She married a peasant boy and had five children in quick succession (as is normal in these parts) before his husband abandoned her. She worked as laundrywoman, as cleaning lady, as fisherwoman, and finally as farm tenant.
Unable to make ends met, she was forced to leave her elder children in the care of relatives, and single-handedly took care of her young boy and baby.
I stayed in the hovel, while she and her two kids stayed in another part of the farmhouse, although we kept a common kitchen and I shared in the expenses. As I was her nephew, she doted on me like her own son. If I wasn’t busy, I helped keep house and baby-sit her kids.
The house had no electricity, no television, no tape or record player, no magazines, no nothing. Our nearest neighbors were perhaps a hundred meters away, so there was no chance for casual over-the-fence chats. Her daily grind was always work, work, work.
So what I did, while I was there, was to keep my portable transistor radio powered on all day, usually in the kitchen. Suddenly, the farmhouse was alive with news and commentary in early mornings and evenings, and soap operas and music the rest of the day.
You could imagine what this could do to suddenly expand the horizons of a peasant woman with an impoverished intellect.
Thus began my radio romance with a working woman.
It isn’t what you think – if that’s not obvious yet.
In the months that I stayed with Aunt Soledad’s household, she literally fell in love with my radio. It did a lot to ease the drudgery of her life, if not exactly to broaden her social and intellectual world.
Often, I had to be out for days on clandestine missions. She would beg me not to take the radio, which I needed for my own use. So I often left it with her.
I was in fact saving up a part of my monthly allowance so I could buy her a transistor radio of her own. Unluckily, I made the mistake of sneaking into the university in the middle of an anti-dictatorship protest that was being monitored by the secret police. I was sighted, collared, and dragged into an unmarked car.
Later, after my prison stint, I would return again and again to Aunt Soledad’s farmhouse. The setting of one of my early favorite blogs, My fatal attraction to a beach beauty, is in that exact locality. She played a nice role in that story. By then, she had married a widower, a kind and gentle farmer.
Fast forward to 30 years later.
This time, my portable radio (still inseparable from me) is a China-made Kaide KK-1012, a 12-band cutie with a special feature of being able to receive the audio (no video of course) from local TV stations.
I found this radio very rugged and reliable, and its capacity to monitor TV audio as particularly useful. For example, I could spend days in a rural village with no electricity, and still be able to basically follow a favorite TV sports coverage or talk show.
In one clan reunion, I meet Aunt Soledad, who I haven’t seen in as many years. She's aged gracefully, with nearly pure white hair, and wrinkled face like intricate crack patterns on old chinaware.
We greet and hug each other like mother and prodigal son. But the practical peasant in her promptly sees me twiddling my Kaide radio.
“Oh, Moon, I see you’ve got yourself a very nice radio.”
“Yes, Auntie. It’s a powerful radio, able to pick up stations all over the world. It can even pick up your favorite TV programs.”
“Really?” Aunt Soledad is visibly impressed, her dusky eyes staring at the Kaide sitting there on my palm.
As usual, my naughty prankster’s mind runs wild with the possibilities.
“Of course,” I say. “J.P. is one of your favorites, isn’t it?” In many rural villages with electricity, entire families gather in the few houses with TV during the evenings to watch their favorite shows. J.P. is one such TV series with a popular following. “This radio can pick up that program, and you no longer need to go watch it at your neighbor's place,” I assure her.
“Really?” My aunt’s eyes double in size as she ogles the radio more intently. She stares closely at the wide dial display, which looks like a miniature TV screen.
I power on the radio, switch to TV-tuner function, pull out the antenna to its full length, and twiddle the dials. The speaker emits the familiar although tinny sounds of J.P. dialogue. Aunt Soledad is amazed and speechless as she listens, still staring at the radio like it was a TV screen.
This prankster drops the punchline. “Look more closely, Aunt Soledad. There it is. I see J.P. has started. You see the images? Small, but very clear. It’s even in color!”
“Aiii-eeeee-aaa, Moon! I can see the image. I can see! It’s really true! Your radio is like a small TV!” My aunt’s face lights up like the imaginary TV screen that she sees in her mind. Incredulous, she turns alternately to look at me and at the Kaide, now suddenly the radio of her dreams.
I know exactly what she will ask next.
“How much does this radio cost, Moon? Can I afford it?
First, I explain to her that the radio can only pick up TV sounds, not show the moving images. She’s disappointed, and chides me for playing a prank on her. (She remains one of my favorite prank victims, hahaha.)
Turning more serious, I discuss the real problem to Aunt Soledad. Sure she can afford it, or I can even give her one, it’s among the cheapest of its kind. But being poor cash-strapped tenants, her family will find it too costly to regularly replenish the batteries.
My aunt, however, has learned a lot since our radio romance of 30 years ago. She now knows the inestimable value of mass media. She and her family want to follow what is happening out there in the big wide world. They want to look beyond their tiny, disconnected villages. Batteries are the least of their problems.
So Aunt Soledad insists, with an affectionate pout, that I get her a Kaide.
Which I did. I bought one for her, together with a year’s supply of batteries. Aunt Soledad was nearly out of her mind listening to her favorite radio stations and TV shows. Yes, TV-audio only, but hey, it’s better than nothing.
When Sophie learned of what I did, she upped the ante. She gave her own gift to my aunt: a Philips RL117 Freepower Radio, which runs on a built-in battery that is recharged simply by turning a dynamo crank. The crank folds nicely into the back panel of the set. No more need to spend on batteries.
front panel
back panel
This Philips radio is now being used by Paquito, my Aunt Soledad's husband, as he tends to cattle, orchards and fallow gardens in the nearby mountains. Cranking the Philips for an hour, which charges the battery for a day's worth of listening, has become his relaxation as he rests in a field hut under the shade of fruit trees.
So there. My radio romance, now starring Soledad and Paquito, goes on until this very day. Which, by the way, is March 8, International Working Women's Day.
This story is dedicated to my Aunt Soledad and to hundred millions of working women of the world who struggle to lift themselves from poverty, oppression, and ignorance.
May all of you have a liberating working women's day!
Note: If you're interested in what I wrote for Working Women's Day last year, click here.
