Spanish Stories

    B2Moderate · 8 min read · 840 words

    Voces sin señal

    Voices Without Signal

    In the Guatemalan highlands, a radionovela writer must decide whether to give her rural listeners the ending they're begging for, or the one that's actually true to their lives.

    Topics

    • migration
    • media
    • guatemala
    • community

    Tap or hover any underlined word for its English meaning.

    Listen to the story

    Learner-paced · Spanish

    What you'll encounter

    Grammar
    Present-tense narration with embedded reported and direct speech, Conditional and hypothetical reasoning (si escribe el regreso feliz que le piden, ganará...), Subjunctive in requests and hedged wishes (le pide que haga que Tomás regrese), Discourse markers and connectors (sin embargo, aunque, ya que)
    Vocabulary
    Media and broadcasting vocabulary (guion, centralita, emisora), Idiomatic expressions (girar en torno a, aunque sea, hacer callar), Migration and family vocabulary
    Language skills
    Understanding an ethical dilemma about storytelling and truth, Following two parallel storylines, fictional and real, Recognizing understated emotional resolution

    Todos los días a las cuatro de la tarde, un generador diésel se enciende detrás de las oficinas de Radio Ixchel, en las afueras de Huehuetenango, y con él empieza a sonar, en varias decenas de pueblos de la sierra, el primer acorde de Los Domínguez, la radionovela que Rosario Pérez lleva escribiendo desde hace once años. En las aldeas donde la señal de internet todavía no llega y la electricidad se corta con frecuencia, la radio sigue siendo, para muchas familias, la principal ventana al mundo, y Los Domínguez, su cita diaria más esperada.

    Show English
    Every day at four in the afternoon, a diesel generator switches on behind the offices of Radio Ixchel, on the outskirts of Huehuetenango, and with it the first notes of Los Domínguez begin to play across dozens of villages in the highlands, the radionovela Rosario Pérez has been writing for eleven years. In villages where internet signal still doesn't reach and the power cuts out often, the radio remains, for many families, the main window to the world, and Los Domínguez their most anticipated daily appointment.

    Rosario empezó a escribir radionovelas hace once años, después de dejar su trabajo como maestra de primaria en un pueblo cercano, aunque nunca ha dejado de pensar en su oficio anterior como una escuela distinta. Sabe, mejor que nadie en la emisora, lo que significa la migración para estas montañas: su propio hermano menor se fue a Carolina del Norte hace ocho años, y desde entonces las conversaciones familiares cuándo podrá volver, si es que puede.

    Show English
    Rosario started writing radionovelas eleven years ago, after leaving her job as a primary school teacher in a nearby town, though she has never stopped thinking of her old profession as a different kind of classroom. She knows, better than anyone else at the station, what migration means for these mountains: her own younger brother left for North Carolina eight years ago, and ever since, family conversations almost always circle back to when he might return, if he ever does.

    Esta temporada, el hijo menor de los Domínguez, Tomás, se ha ido a Estados Unidos buscando trabajo, siguiendo un camino que, en la vida real, han tomado también decenas de jóvenes de estas mismas montañas. Rosario escribió esa trama pensando en la audiencia que mejor conoce: familias que tienen, casi todas, a alguien que se fue por la misma razón. No esperaba, sin embargo, la cantidad de cartas y llamadas que la historia iba a provocar.

    Show English
    This season, the youngest Domínguez son, Tomás, has left for the United States looking for work, following a path that, in real life, dozens of young people from these same mountains have taken too. Rosario wrote that storyline with the audience she knows best in mind: families who almost all have someone who left for the same reason. What she didn't expect was how many letters and calls the story would set off.

    Desde que Tomás se despidió de su familia en el episodio de marzo, la de la radio no ha dejado de recibir mensajes de oyentes que piden, casi exigen, que el personaje regrese pronto. Algunos llaman llorando; otros escriben cartas que llegan dobladas varias veces dentro de sobres reutilizados, pidiendo que Tomás vuelva antes de Navidad, como si de eso dependiera algo más que un guion de radio.

    Show English
    Ever since Tomás said goodbye to his family in the March episode, the station's switchboard hasn't stopped receiving messages from listeners asking, almost demanding, that the character come back soon. Some call in tears; others write letters that arrive folded over several times inside reused envelopes, asking for Tomás to return before Christmas, as if something more than a radio script depended on it.

    Entre esas cartas hay una que Rosario no puede dejar de releer, firmada por una mujer que dice llamarse doña Petronila y que vive en una aldea a dos horas de la ciudad. En ella cuenta que su propio hijo se fue hace seis años y que, desde entonces, solo ha vuelto una vez, de visita, durante ocho días. Le pide a Rosario, con una letra insegura pero decidida, que haga que Tomás regrese para quedarse, « en la radio, ya que en la vida real esas cosas no siempre pasan».

    Show English
    Among those letters is one Rosario can't stop rereading, signed by a woman who says her name is doña Petronila and who lives in a village two hours from the city. In it she says her own son left six years ago and that, since then, he's only come back once, for a visit, for eight days. She asks Rosario, in unsteady but determined handwriting, to make Tomás come back for good, "even if it's only on the radio, since in real life those things don't always happen."

    La petición pone a Rosario ante un dilema que no había anticipado del todo. Sabe que, si escribe el regreso feliz que le piden, ganará la gratitud inmediata de cientos de oyentes, pero también sabe, mejor que la mayoría, que ese regreso no siempre llega: han pasado ocho años desde que su hermano se fue y todavía no ha vuelto ni una sola vez. Inventar un final fácil, piensa, sería casi una falta de respeto hacia quienes, como ella, siguen esperando sin saber cuándo.

    Show English
    The request puts Rosario in front of a dilemma she hadn't fully anticipated. She knows that if she writes the happy return they're asking for, she'll win the immediate gratitude of hundreds of listeners, but she also knows, better than most, that the return doesn't always come: it's been eight years since her brother left and he still hasn't come back, not once. Inventing an easy ending, she thinks, would be almost disrespectful toward people who, like her, are still waiting without knowing when.

    Se lo comenta a Feliciano, el director técnico de la radio, mientras revisan juntos el guion de la próxima semana. Él le recuerda que su propio sobrino se fue hace tres años y que todavía no sabe cuándo volverá, si es que vuelve. «No hace falta que le des lo que pide exactamente», le dice. «Pero tampoco puedes fingir que su carta no dice nada.»

    Show English
    She mentions it to Feliciano, the station's technical director, while they go over next week's script together. He reminds her that his own nephew left three years ago and still doesn't know when he'll be back, if he ever will. "You don't have to give her exactly what she's asking for," he tells her. "But you can't pretend her letter doesn't say anything either."

    Rosario pasa varias noches reescribiendo el final del episodio. Finalmente decide que Tomás no regresará físicamente, al menos no todavía, pero que la familia recibirá una llamada suya, larga y por la mala señal, en la que promete mandar dinero para arreglar el techo de la casa y jura que, aunque no sepa cuándo, algún día volverá a sentarse a esa misma mesa. No es el final que le pidió doña Petronila, pero es, piensa Rosario, el más honesto que puede ofrecer.

    Show English
    Rosario spends several nights rewriting the episode's ending. She finally decides that Tomás won't come back physically, not yet at least, but that the family will get a call from him, long and clumsy because of the bad signal, in which he promises to send money to fix the roof and swears that, even if he doesn't know when, he'll sit at that same table again someday. It isn't the ending doña Petronila asked for, but it's, Rosario thinks, the most honest one she can offer.

    El día en que se transmite el episodio, Rosario imagina, como hace siempre, a los oyentes escuchándolo: mujeres que dejan de cocinar un momento, hombres que suben el volumen de la radio del carro, niños a quienes alguien manda . No puede verlos, pero después de once años ha aprendido a imaginarlos con bastante precisión.

    Show English
    On the day the episode airs, Rosario imagines, as she always does, the listeners hearing it: women who stop cooking for a moment, men who turn up the volume on the car radio, children someone shushes. She can't see them, but after eleven years she's learned to picture them with fair precision.

    Dos semanas después llega una nueva carta de doña Petronila. En ella no pide nada; solo cuenta que, desde que escuchó el episodio de la llamada, decidió llamar ella misma a su hijo esa misma noche, algo que llevaba meses posponiendo por miedo a interrumpirlo en su trabajo. Hablaron cuarenta minutos. Al final de la carta añade una sola frase: «Gracias por no mentirme.»

    Show English
    Two weeks later a new letter arrives from doña Petronila. It asks for nothing; it only says that, ever since she heard the phone call episode, she decided to call her own son that same night, something she'd been putting off for months out of fear of interrupting him at work. They talked for forty minutes. At the end of the letter she adds a single line: "Thank you for not lying to me."

    Rosario guarda la carta en el cajón donde conserva las que más le importan, junto a otras que casi nunca vuelve a leer. Esa tarde, mientras el generador vuelve a encenderse detrás de las oficinas, empieza a escribir el episodio de la semana siguiente, sin saber todavía qué pasará con Tomás, pero segura, por primera vez en semanas, de que no está escribiendo sola.

    Show English
    Rosario keeps the letter in the drawer where she saves the ones that matter most to her, alongside others she almost never reads again. That afternoon, as the generator switches back on behind the offices, she starts writing next week's episode, still not knowing what will happen to Tomás, but certain, for the first time in weeks, that she isn't writing alone.
    Show English translation

    Every day at four in the afternoon, a diesel generator switches on behind the offices of Radio Ixchel, on the outskirts of Huehuetenango, and with it the first notes of Los Domínguez begin to play across dozens of villages in the highlands, the radionovela Rosario Pérez has been writing for eleven years. In villages where internet signal still doesn't reach and the power cuts out often, the radio remains, for many families, the main window to the world, and Los Domínguez their most anticipated daily appointment.

    Rosario started writing radionovelas eleven years ago, after leaving her job as a primary school teacher in a nearby town, though she has never stopped thinking of her old profession as a different kind of classroom. She knows, better than anyone else at the station, what migration means for these mountains: her own younger brother left for North Carolina eight years ago, and ever since, family conversations almost always circle back to when he might return, if he ever does.

    This season, the youngest Domínguez son, Tomás, has left for the United States looking for work, following a path that, in real life, dozens of young people from these same mountains have taken too. Rosario wrote that storyline with the audience she knows best in mind: families who almost all have someone who left for the same reason. What she didn't expect was how many letters and calls the story would set off.

    Ever since Tomás said goodbye to his family in the March episode, the station's switchboard hasn't stopped receiving messages from listeners asking, almost demanding, that the character come back soon. Some call in tears; others write letters that arrive folded over several times inside reused envelopes, asking for Tomás to return before Christmas, as if something more than a radio script depended on it.

    Among those letters is one Rosario can't stop rereading, signed by a woman who says her name is doña Petronila and who lives in a village two hours from the city. In it she says her own son left six years ago and that, since then, he's only come back once, for a visit, for eight days. She asks Rosario, in unsteady but determined handwriting, to make Tomás come back for good, "even if it's only on the radio, since in real life those things don't always happen."

    The request puts Rosario in front of a dilemma she hadn't fully anticipated. She knows that if she writes the happy return they're asking for, she'll win the immediate gratitude of hundreds of listeners, but she also knows, better than most, that the return doesn't always come: it's been eight years since her brother left and he still hasn't come back, not once. Inventing an easy ending, she thinks, would be almost disrespectful toward people who, like her, are still waiting without knowing when.

    She mentions it to Feliciano, the station's technical director, while they go over next week's script together. He reminds her that his own nephew left three years ago and still doesn't know when he'll be back, if he ever will. "You don't have to give her exactly what she's asking for," he tells her. "But you can't pretend her letter doesn't say anything either."

    Rosario spends several nights rewriting the episode's ending. She finally decides that Tomás won't come back physically, not yet at least, but that the family will get a call from him, long and clumsy because of the bad signal, in which he promises to send money to fix the roof and swears that, even if he doesn't know when, he'll sit at that same table again someday. It isn't the ending doña Petronila asked for, but it's, Rosario thinks, the most honest one she can offer.

    On the day the episode airs, Rosario imagines, as she always does, the listeners hearing it: women who stop cooking for a moment, men who turn up the volume on the car radio, children someone shushes. She can't see them, but after eleven years she's learned to picture them with fair precision.

    Two weeks later a new letter arrives from doña Petronila. It asks for nothing; it only says that, ever since she heard the phone call episode, she decided to call her own son that same night, something she'd been putting off for months out of fear of interrupting him at work. They talked for forty minutes. At the end of the letter she adds a single line: "Thank you for not lying to me."

    Rosario keeps the letter in the drawer where she saves the ones that matter most to her, alongside others she almost never reads again. That afternoon, as the generator switches back on behind the offices, she starts writing next week's episode, still not knowing what will happen to Tomás, but certain, for the first time in weeks, that she isn't writing alone.

    Vocabulary in this story

    giran en torno a
    revolve around, keep coming back to
    centralita
    switchboard, call center
    aunque sea
    even if it's only, if only
    torpe
    clumsy, awkward
    hacer callar
    to hush, to make be quiet
    Comprensión(check what you understood)

    Answer a few quick questions about the story. This is just for you: there's no account or score saved.

    1. ¿Por qué es tan importante Los Domínguez para muchos oyentes de la región?
    2. ¿Por qué empiezan a llegar tantas cartas y llamadas a la radio?
    3. ¿Por qué duda Rosario en darle a doña Petronila el final feliz que pide?
    4. ¿Cómo resuelve finalmente Rosario la trama de Tomás?
    5. ¿Qué revela la segunda carta de doña Petronila sobre el efecto del episodio?