ARIGUANABORADIO
San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa, Cuba._That early morning Bernabe flew over Havana. His flight from Moscow arrived several hours earlier than planned. That fact did not use to happen frequently. Nobody expected him. He blamed the Soviet pilots and decided to surprise his family at home. He picked up his bags and left for San Antonio de los Baños. There are many stories about the first day of Ariguanabo Radio. However, the story I tell you today has been hidden for over 40 years. At this moment, only the protagonist and I knew it. Now it belongs to everyone.
The young man came to the Humor Villa 75 minutes after landing. The town was just as he had left it five years ago. He bought fresh roses for her mother. He could not believe that was October 8th 1971, ‘'At that moment I remembered the freshness of the river, it was as if I had never been away’’, told me Bernabe.
He entered his house and a huge surprise was waiting for him. His family was gathered in the great hall of that colonial style house. Everyone looked at him, but did not move from their positions. He dropped the luggage and took the closest chair. He could not believe it, after all this time away from home, nobody stood up to receive him, not even Grandma Minerva, the one who spoiled him as a child. ‘'The first thing I thought was that they had forgotten my arrival, explained the protagonist. ‘’I just thought that they hadn't recieved the last letters I had send or that I had simply confused the house’’, he smiled.
Suddenly, the music burst into the room, an excited neighborhood shouted CABALLERO!, We've got RADIO, SAN ANTONIO HAS A RADIO STATION !, cried uncle Nicomedes, then he realized that the music came from a small little radio. That was the reason why they had not paid attention to him. Everyone was waiting to hear the first sounds of Ariguanabo Radio. '’After that time, everybody praised me, it was as if they had not seen me before, Mom hugged me and my grandma too’’, he recalls. '’They were so focused at that time that until the signal broke the silence, no one moved. They seemed to be hypnotized’’.
Bernabe also told me that several days later he met a friend, Carmelo de Armas, one of the founders of the radio station. He paused and smiled. – ‘’What you have done is a work of infinite power, the challenge is to maintain a sense of novelty which my family and the city lived the day I arrived. ‘’We’ll try’’, Carmelo answered.
Almost 45 years after those events, the municipality feels and trusts its radio which is among the best of its kind in the country, with the committment of maintaining it fresh as the first day.
