Origins of Radio Mulukukú (Radio Revolución)

Thus far I haven´t given any background info or context for this blog and the projects we´re visiting, so let me start….

(I will be in pieces so stay tuned.)  

Part I

The women’s cooperative saw that community-run non-commercial media is essential for social justice and decided to start an outlet for local information and education. Radio Mulukukú (also known as Radio Revolución) was started in 2004 with the help of Radios Populares (RP) and has been going strong ever since.

We got connected with Radio Mulukukú through the fabulous Allen Gomez of RP, an excellent collective based in Chicago that helps groups struggling for social justice build low-power FM community radio stations. They have helped a number of groups throughout Latin America.  And judging from what we´ve seen in Radio Mulukukú they do great work!  It is a well-built station with a well-trained staff that previously had little or no experience in radio.   

Check out their website and throw some support their way:

www.radiospopulares.org 

If you click on ‘Projects’ and then on ‘Radio Mulukukú’ they have a video of the inception of the station. 

Live from Mulukuku...off to Honduras

Friday Feb 11, 2011- We woke up early, ate a plate of fruit and then headed straight up the antenna tower. We thought we were leaving at noon so we hustled to get as much done as possible.  (We left shortly before sun down, I love how futile watches and schedules are hereJ)

View looking down from the tower onto Petri and the Radio Mulukuku building.

Liz and antenna. The block of green behind my shoulders is the field and basketball court and behind my bandana is the central  block of the Cooperative with the clinic, women’s facilities, etc.

We would liked to have poured gallons of water over each connection one by one to see if the transmitter shut off, but that would have taken a lot of time and not necessarily produced the same conditions as a strong downpour, so we did it only on the four way power divider connection the first time we climbed the tower on Wednesday. Friday morning we re-taped connections, made a plastic hat for the power divider, tested the four antennas and attended to the cable to antenna connections.

Petri making plastic hat for power divider

We untapped and sawed notches in all of the plastic pvc tubes covering the cable to antenna connections. We re-taped them so that they are more level. The third one up was rust colored inside the tube, which none of the others were. It seems the most likely suspect.

We'll just have to wait for another downpour to see if we actually fixed the problem. I must say we were pretty thorough, so I'm optimistic. The antennas naturally sag a bit over time so they could be tightened up a bit in the future.

Petri made cables for the remote transmitter (radio movil). The mobile unit is a lower watt station that can be moved from location to location and picked up by the studio at Radio Mulukuku and transmitted via their 250 watt transmitter. 

Radio Mulukuku

We tested it out from the Cooperative and went on Radio Mulukuku live. You could hear it clear as day. The antenna for the mobil unit was tuned to 107.

Mobil radio antenna

Mobil Radio Unit

Grethel y the Doctor

Danilo on the air

Further tests will need to be done to see how far it reaches, but Petri and Aldo drove to the bridge and it still picked up signal out there. So they should at least be able to broadcast live from the baseball games. Baseball is still king here, so for those who can't make it out to the games it will be great to listen at home or work.

After some interviews and short speeches celebrating the new radio movil Radio Mulukuku returned to its scheduled program and we cleared our gear from the station and went to Grethel’s for lunch. We ate fish that Danilo caught in the local river the night before. Rico!

Grethel and Noel live on a farm not far from the Cooperative. The land is beautiful. Quite expansive with lots of trees, animals, a man made lake and trails. They raise cows, chickens, pigs, and quails, produce their own milk and cheese, and grow lots of their own food. They're ready for global collapse.  

Noel in front of the farm house.

Pigs and Milk

Shade for pigs and keeps a year worth of firewood dry.

After lunch we walked with Aldo to their man-made lake and saw what looked like a couple of herons. (Sorry, no good pics of the birds)

Killer Bamboo, huge torns!

Crazy slick red tree

Walking the line between man and nature

After our little walk we set out in the truck with thirteen people all together.  Five in the cab and eight in the back of the truck. 

Just startin' to pile in and get cozy

Grethl’s grandchildren were headed back to school, which starts the 15th nationwide. It rained and everyone and everything got a bit wet, but it could have been worse. Half of the five hour ride was very very bumpy as the roads to Mulukuku are not paved. Reprieve was had in Rio Blanco when we stopped for fries and a drink. Rio Blanco has no more than a couple of intersections, but is home to the ‘Atlantic City Casino'. Casinos are everywhere here, but smaller in size than those in the U.S.)

Had it not been for Danilo's excellent eyes and reflexes we would've ended in a giant ten feet deep pit, but we didn't and the ride was fine. At one point one of the girls tapped vigorously on the window of the cab to signal us to pull over. Someone in the back had to pee. We stopped on a bridge and Grethel told them not to leave the bridge, that they should pee off the side. I wanted to say something about peeing into a water source, but then she mentioned how during the war someone pulled over at this very bridge to pee and walked into the vegetation and was blown apart by a mine. After that story I didn’t feel the need to remind them to be 50 feet away from water when urinating, 150' when pooing. 

There’s still a lot to do and see in Mulukuku, but we’ve got a bit of a schedule, so we’ll have to come back. 

  

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Saturday Feb. 12, 2011- We are now in Matagalpa at a lovely hostel that was started by an American named Robert and Noel (Grethels' nephew). 

El conejito

Petri in the hostel

Tomorrow will be the hostel’s one year anniversary.  Everything still looks really new and a little more upscale than your average backpacker hangout. They have a library, hammocks, a rabbit, and the strangest wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom.  

It's green and white wallpaper of hygiene and beauty advertisement slogans from the 1940s (or older?).  What’s even weirder is that the drawings of generic products looks like they were designed originally to be wallpaper and weren't just recycled for the purpose. 

(Didn’t have time to get picture as we were running out to catch a bus).

Matagalpa was very laid back and walkable. It was a good place for rest and errands before hitting the road again Sunday morning. I hear there are nice hikes and waterfalls in the area as well, but didn't stay long enough for any side trips.  

Up we go!

Today (Thursday Feb 10, 2011) we woke up early and set out to climb the tower to see why exactly the transmitter shuts down when it rains hard. 

(Petri about to climb the tower)

(Liz coming up the tower)

(View of the radio station and two of the antennas)

(Liz hanging from the tower)

(Petri on the tower)

(One piece of the 360 panorama view)

The view was amazing and we found a couple suspects. The plastic around the connection from the cables to the antennas are not level and have no place for water to drain out. 

Petri went up again this afternoon, but the sun set before he could finish.  We’ll both be going up tomorrow to try and fix everything before we leave for Matagalpa. We started on the mobile radio unit, but didn’t finish.

The hours fly by and things slow down considerably after the sun goes down.  People wake up with the sun and thus go to bed considerably early than city folks. We're adjusting.

La Cooperativa

La Cooperativa de Mujeres

'Cooperative Maria Luisa Ortiz working for the health and dignity of the campesina woman.'

The Cooperative Maria Luisa Ortiz was started in 1990 by Nicaraguan Grethl Sequeira Montoya and the American nurse, Dorothy Granada.

But let’s go back a little further.

Grethel and her husband, Noel, moved to the area in the 1970s and started a construction material cooperative in 1988 after Hurricane Juan wiped out the town on Oct. 20 of that year.  They helped women build houses and put the titles in their names. Noel’s family owned a lot of the land in the area and donated it to the town and the Cooperative.   

The area was home to a Sandinista military training school and many relocated to the area seeking safety from Contra violence. After the war many people were still armed and there was a lot of violence against women (there still is, but rates in Mulukuku have declined in comparison to surrounding areas). 

Dorothy went down to Nicaragua in the 1970s and met Grethel. The two women wanted to do as much as possible to address violence against women. By 1990 Dorothy and Grethel opened a clinic and started educational programs, which is still known as La Cooperativa Maria Luisa Ortiz. 

Outside the Clinic

They’ve stayed focused on women’s issue, especially domestic violence and reproductive health.

 Part of the mural that wraps two sides of the clinic building

The Cooperative has served about 38,000 patients since they opened the clinic and about 12,000 through the justice program which helps women who seek support to address domestic violence, sexual abuse, divorce and any other issues affecting women in the local area.

Today (Feb. 9, 2011) we got a personal tour of the Cooperative from Grethel. The compound occupies a small town block and is surrounded by a fence.  

The Cooperative as seen from the radio tower

Inside it houses a clinic, lab, pharmacy, birthing room, children's room, computer lab, future library, offices for their justice program and administration as well as rooms for the doctors, women, and visitors who reside here for varied durations. There are communal showers, bathrooms, sinks and covered outdoor meeting spaces.  Across the street is the radio station and next to the radio station is the mediation center. 

(The Cooperative does more than I could get my mind around, so this is not a complete list of what they have or do. It’s only what we saw.)

Radio Mulukuku

Radio Mulukuku sign 'At the service of the community'

Wednesday Feb. 9, 2011

Sleep was sabroso (delicious) and mosquito free, thanks to the nets provided. After a quick breakfast of oranges, bananas, and pineapple we headed across the basketball court to the radio station.  

Front of Radio Mulukuku building

Radio Mulukuku studio and interview room.

Radio Mulukuku is housed in a lovely three room building with a large party/meeting room next to it.  The tower out back is 150 ft. high.  We'll be climbing it early tomorrow to see why the transmitter shuts off when it rains.

Today (Feb. 9, 2011) Petri led a five-hour workshop building itty bitty transmitters, I assisted.  It was a great success.  Every group got theirs working.  One of them will be used as a remote transmitter to broadcast from events around town. 

Workshop participants, Radio Mulukuku team.

Participants building itty bitty transmitters.

We’ve been spending most of our time at the radio station with the six people who staff Radio Mulukuku and a couple others who are always around. Couldn’t ask for a better crew.  Four men and two women who had little to no prior training are running a 300 watt station and it sounds great!

After the workshop we attended a going away celebration for Eric, a third year medical resident from Boston who has been working here for about 5 weeks.  Stories were shared and improvements suggested for the clinic. 

The clinic could definitely use more medical volunteers, equipment, and like every organization, funds. The Cooperative’s goal is to raise 1.5 million so they become totally independent and sustainable.  The money would be lent to farmers in the area at a low interest rate and the cooperative would fund itself off the interest.

“Es el sueño¨ (“It´s the dream”) says Grethel.

Everyone has been incredibly hospitable.  We are served every meal in a quaint, but incredibly cozy outdoor thatched hut. Everything is fresh and vegetarian (at our request).  Pinky the dog is unimpressed, we leave him no scraps. 

Petri about to eat.

By 9 O’clock we’re all wiped, but we stay up for a couple hours more to share stories with Michelle, the other visiting American med student ... and of course, to get our internet fix.

Mulukuku Who?

Yes, I know the title of this blog is 'Ondas de Honduras' 'Waves from Honduras', but our story begins in Nicaragua for a couple reasons.


1st:  The international airport in Tegucigalpa is among the 10 most dangerous in the world because of its short runway and location.


2nd:  We got very cheap tickets on Spirit Airlines from NYC to Managua. (Note: Spirit Airlines does charge for everything and you can no longer buy one way tickets out of the US. You need a return ticket, luckily we got to the airport in time to buy a fully refundable return ticket on another airline
so they let us pass go.)


3rd:  Why not see more.


So here we are in Nicaragua!


We arrived in Managua at 2am this morning. Moses welcomed us with open arms into his windowless Range Rover that looked like it survived the revolution. I was floored by how calm and quiet the capital is (after sunrise it was busier, but not overwhelming). Almost no cars or people in sight. Just the perfect temperature, great vegetation and latin american style houses, shacks, and buildings.


We stayed not far from the Plaza de la Revolución which is home to the monument to The Nameless Guerilla Soldier (El Guerrillero sin Nombre).

At 10am we were woken up because our ride to Mulukuku arrived 2 hours early. Unheard of in this part of the world as far as I knew.


Danilo y Haddington patiently waited while we shed some pounds of luggage and loaded Dyani up with software and materials to take back to San Juan del Sur for the school she started down there called 'Barrio Planta Project' (and where I'll be helping out next month after Petri departs).


http://barrio-planta-project.blogspot.com/


The ride to Mulukuku was amazing. Beautiful serene scenery illuminated by the a light that felt clean and warm without the harshness of a grueling summer sun. The road was lined with an artistic variety of homemade dwellings, floral trees, vultures, egrets, cows, pigs, horses, children, more children, women balancing things on their heads, and rocks and trees painted black and red, some with contrasting outlines of the figure of Sandino stenciled on.


We picked up a couple and their two-year-old along the way. He was returning home from his fifth surgery. He survived being shot 5 times. At quarter to six in the morning while feeding his pigs and chickens six men came and shot him. He is sure they were sent by a rival politician in the area where he was a candidate for office. How he survived I'm not sure. When I asked if he'd continue to pursue politics after he finishes the four surgeries he still has left before a full recovery he replied he´s thinking about working for the church since he considers it a miracle to be alive. A story I wish I could follow up on. But we dropped them and their new dog off at their new house.


We got to Mulukuku after sundown and were warmly greeted by compañeros from the collective. They showed us around and walked us across the street to the outdoor dining area where we were served a delicious meal of beans, rice, egg, some vegetable I couldn't identify, succulent tomatoes, cheese, and tortillas.


We were joined by two American med students who are here volunteering and now it´s off to bed.


Tomorrow we´ll be touring the radio station.
Stay tuned to find out about this women´s cooperative we are visiting in Mulukuku....