Centroamerican Anthology | Translation

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The following English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

[Daniel A.]: This is Radio Ambulante, I’m Daniel Alarcón.

A few months ago, at the start of season 15, we published an episode called Antología argentina: three early Radio Ambulante stories set in that country. These weeks, while we work on our next season, we want to revisit that concept. It’s an opportunity to look back and see how we’ve changed… And it felt like a good moment to reminisce with you about those times and, in case you haven’t heard these stories, now you’ll have the chance to.

Without a doubt, we’ve grown, we’ve become more ambitious. But Radio Ambulante’s DNA is in the stories we bring you today, which this time come from Central America.

The first story is from 2015. We published it in our fourth season. And it’s about a man we’ll call Carlos.

[Carlos]: From Corinto to the capital of Guatemala, from Guatemala to Tecún Umán, in Tecún Umán, you rest. Then you jump into Mexico. That’s where the game begins.

[Daniel A.]: And this journey he describes is his work route.

[Carlos]: And Monterrey, the border. Then the other part of the game begins, which is the American border, waiting for your ride and your turn. Patiently until the moment comes.

[Daniel A.]: For us at Radio Ambulante, the topic of migration is central. Especially Latin American migration to the United States. And we tend to talk about the migrant, but not so much about the guide, known as a coyote. The one who makes a living crossing immigrants through the borders on their route to the North American country. Men like Carlos, who in this case works the route from Honduras to Arizona.

For this episode, we used a slightly different narrative style. You’ll hear a single voice, that of the coyote himself. This is his testimony. In Honduras, Carlos spoke with journalists Iolany Pérez and Jennifer Avila.

Here’s Carlos.

[Carlos]: I started in this business approximately 15 years ago. I was a migrant. I traveled to the U.S. undocumented. When I make the decision of going as an illegal, I was studying. I left in an innocent way with friends, looking for the American dream.

I was motivated by the high level of criminality there is in my country, obviously, this has been around for a while.

I get to the U.S. and I stay for more than 10 years. Working honestly for a while then, well, as we say, as a coyote.

Working in the U.S. as a migrant, one makes 400, 500, 600 dollars when it’s good…well worked, sweating in construction sites.

With taking undocumented people, migrants, it was 10,000 dollars. So that automatically changes your life. You see it’s fast money, it’s fast money but it’s also risky money.

[Carlos]: The opportunity came up through some friends, who already did this. They tell me if I want  to bring people to the border in a truck. Innocently, I take that truck and I get to the shore of the Rio Bravo to bring people. From Houston to Laredo, Texas; from Laredo, Texas to Houston. That was how I started getting involved little by little in this, the only thing is that now I do it from Central America to Houston. But that’s how I got my start.

Well, it’s risky, it’s a coin toss, and one doesn’t know what’s going to happen…there are good moments and there are ugly ones. Moments when you’re stopped by a sheriff, you have to crash that truck and run away because they don’t want the undocumented people, they want the driver. They stop and they take the people away. People that have been deported and well, we have to take them again…and a lot of people don’t make it…

The same authorities supposedly follow you because you are a coyote but the reality of things is that they receive a piece of the cake too…you have to bribe the police, federals, immigration officers, even a big cartel who also wants their share. This is a lucrative business. It’s become lucrative on both sides.

[Carlos]: But from the 100% that you charge as a coyote, you only keep 25%. If you charge $7,000 you are going to be left with $1,800.

In this job, you make your own resume. You forge your own destiny. If you are a bad coyote and you make people go hungry…keep them from sleeping, hanging off a train, walking days and nights, things coyotes do, a lot of coyotes do that…you’re going to be recommended less…because they have to pay the amount you tell them to, but you guarantee them safety and well-being…

You have money left. I feel it’s worth the risk. I can tell you that undocumented people die daily. Daily. It’s not one, it’s millions of people.

[Carlos]: At least in my experience, yes they’ve caught some of my people, but thank God I’ve never had people die…not yet, and I hope that never happens to me…because it’s happened in a lot of cases, right?

At the hand of ruthless people who are coyotes, who get to Tapachula, rent a trailer, you’re put in a trailer, 40, 50, 60… that’s not important to them…and they stop at the border. They don’t know what happens in that trailer…But always look at it from the human side. Treat your people well, so that something like that doesn’t happen to you.

You have to put more of your heart into it…it’s not the same to tell them you’re going on a bus, in a truck, to being taken for 15, 17 days hanging off a train…that’s why you charge what you charge. For your safety.

This business is a mine at the peak of its exploitation. The train is the immigrant’s last resource…because it’s the real immigrant who doesn’t have a single peso left to pay for it. Then he has to hang from the beast, putting up with cold weather, sun, hunger, sleep…

[Carlos]: Running the risk of cutting your foot, falling off a train, getting dehydrated, dying from the cold, dying from the hot. Because it’s the last resource there is…the real undocumented person…the beast, the train, from one border to the other border.

After you’re done with a job, a trip, the feeling that you made good friends stays with you…because you’re traveling with them and you start feeling for them, they are looking for the American dream, they start trusting you, you’re making money and it feels good…

What there was was an avalanche of young people, kids running away from our countries. We could tell you it was a wonderful time. You got the Central American kids, made them cross the Rio Bravo and they were caught by immigration. Immigration has to give you a document, a permit that still exists…that law has always existed because you are a minor.

It’s less money but it’s guaranteed money because the parent wants you to hand the kid off to immigration…so it’s a safe bet. Now, ask me, what do the governments in our countries do  about that? Nothing. That’s the problem there is at the border…a large amount of kids running away from here.

[Carlos]: According to the authorities in our countries, we are delinquents. everybody who is a coyote, it’s considered bad in the eyes of people but not in the eyes of God. Many times we also help undocumented people. It’s all up to how morbidly you look at it…if you want to look at it morbidly or if you want to look at the humanitarian side…there are a lot of coyotes that have helped a lot of people…there’s a lot of people who have made it with big families when one or both parents are working outside of our country…and you know it’s something you can’t do here…have a child graduate, send him to college, buy a home…thanks to a coyote they made it…

The American dream exists. I lived the American dream.

You think the gringos are just going to block that border? They are not going to block it, man…They can’t stop it, it’s impossible for them to stop it…if they block it, we dig a hole and take them underground…but we have to get there.

[Daniel A.]: Carlos was interviewed by Iolany Pérez and Jenifer Avila, both Honduran journalists. Iolany works for Radio Progreso and Jennifer is the cofounder and editorial director of Contra Corriente. This story was produced by Camila Segura. The music and sound design are by Andrés Azpiri and Rémy Lozano. We’ll take a break and be back with the next story.

[Daniel A.]: We’re back on Radio Ambulante.

[MUSIC: “No soy de aqui ni soy de alla”, Facundo Cabral]

[Daniel A.]: This song is by the well-known Argentine singer-songwriter Facundo Cabral. Facundo inspired Latin American audiences with his protest music and social criticism. Since the 1970s, he traveled the world spreading messages of peace.

[MUSIC: “No soy de aqui ni soy de alla”, Facundo Cabral]

[Daniel A.]: But in 2011, Facundo Cabral died in an unexpectedly violent way.

TELESUR: The cultural world is experiencing today a painful and unexpected loss.

TELEESPAÑA: A group of hitmen intercepted and riddled with bullets the car of Facundo Cabral in the Guatemalan capital.

NOTICIERO GUATEMALA: The vehicle was struck by more than 25 projectiles.

[Daniel A.]: It happened in the early hours of July 9th, in Guatemala City. Facundo Cabral was with his close friend Percy Llanos, and with Henry Fariñas, a Nicaraguan businessman. That early morning he was taking Facundo and Percy to the airport in his car. They never made it. This is Percy:

[Percy]: I thought I was dead and why had all of this happened, and I didn’t know. Then I was overcome by a very severe emotional state, a tremendous shock, that prevented me for a few seconds from thinking clearly, and I realized that in a few more seconds all of this was going to be extremely serious because it involved the assassination of a world figure, and that I was there as the only witness.

[Daniel A.]: This story is called “La muerte de Facundo Cabral.” The producer is Gabriela Llanos, Percy’s youngest daughter. Here’s Gabriela.

[Gabriela Llanos]: My father met Facundo in Argentina, in the 60s, when he worked as a disc jockey at Radio Universidad de Córdoba. They were both very young and Facundo had just started his artistic career.

[Percy]: He was a gawky man, but he also had an amazing appeal to women, a very seductive man, with long hair, beard, glasses….

An outfit which I think was the forerunner to wearing jeans, cowboy shirt and pants, Texas-style boots, which then led to many jokes with Facundo’s sense of humor: in one of his songs he always says he puts on Texan boots but in reality they were from Córdoba, Argentina.

[Gabriela Llanos]: I was born in Córdoba. In 1982, in May, before the end of the Falklands war my family moved to Venezuela. My father went from working in radio to producing shows. He and my mom, Anita, created their own company. In 1983, they contacted Facundo, who had become an Argentinean pop music icon.

My father and mother were the first ones to bring him to Venezuela.

[Percy]: Because he already was a wanderer, a “first class” bum. Facundo was an idol, first in Caracas and then in the rest of the country. From there we started getting very interested in his work and we offered him tours around Central America.

[Gabriela Llanos]: For over twenty years, Facundo and my father organized concert tours, some very long, almost as long as three months. Every year, they traveled together. They shared dinners, breakfasts, talks, mate tea…

Until 1999, when Facundo was diagnosed with prostate cancer. From then on, he had many health issues, and in his final years he had to cancel several tours, including one around Central America in 2009.

It wasn’t until 2011 when Facundo was able to reschedule this tour – a tough year for my family. My mother died in a horrible way, quick, without giving us time to take in her illness. Because of that, the tour was so short, so calm…

[Percy]: For me it was like a therapy. The doctors, and my daughters, my family, they had asked me to get back to work to get out of the depression I was in, and the best way to get back in a better state was to do something which was being handed to me on a silver platter, which was finishing this pending tour.

[Gabriela Llanos]: On July 2nd, 2011, my father and Facundo landed in Nicaragua for the first concert of the tour. Facundo wasn’t well, his cancer had spread and he had to start another round of chemotherapy. Because of this, the week they spent together, my father wasn’t surprised about the recurring theme in their conversations: dying. According to my father, Facundo even had premonitions.

[Percy]: Sadly I realized it later, not when he was telling me. Because I kept trying to excuse him whenever he said those things. I tried to make him see that when he talked about death it wasn’t because he sensed his immediate end, but rather he sensed he was nearing the end because of his illness.

[Gabriela Llanos]: Arriving at the airport in Nicaragua, dad met the person who, without his knowledge, would be key in the fatal outcome of this story: Henry Fariñas, the businessman who hired them for only one concert in Managua. Facundo already knew him from a previous tour, that’s why they greeted each other so warmly. For my dad, however, it was the first time they met.

Dad and I have spoken a lot about the day Facundo died and always, inevitably, we would mention Henry Fariñas.

[Percy]: I was surprised to see him. A young man, 42 years old. Dressed in yuppie style, like the modern businessman, not like the old businessmen I’ve met throughout the years in Central America with their cigars and their guayaberas…it was obvious Henry Fariñas was mostly a fan. He was a businessman, but a different kind, not the kind that put on shows.

[Gabriela Llanos]: The only concert Henry Fariñas organized in that tour was at the Teatro Rubén Darío of Nicaragua and was sold out, like the other two: the one in Guatemala City and the last one, at Quetzaltenango. Dad says that Facundo was in a good mood, wanting to talk, to joke, to enjoy the scenery…

[Facundo Cabral]: I am very glad to be here with you…we’ve been friends for many years…you gave shelter to my songs, and were my buddies, my partners, in this extraordinary adventure that is live…

[Percy]: I remember perfectly a chat I had with him during our trip to Quetzaltenango where he asked the driver to stop every other minute, at every place we passed, because he was remembering all the time he had spent there twenty years ago during his first trip to Guatemala.

[Facundo Cabral]: I’ve been walking this planet for 51 marvelous years…

[Gabriela Llanos]: Friday July 8th, 2011 was the end of the tour. They were supposed to leave the next day: Facundo heading to Buenos Aires to do his chemotherapy and my dad returning to Caracas. Both of them were melancholy. It was the end of a week where they had been able to escape their reality: Facundo of his cancer and dad of mom’s absence. But on that Friday, going from Quetzaltenango to Guatemala City, everything took an unexpected turn…

[Percy]: The plane was leaving at six thirty in the morning and when we arrived at Quetzaltenango on Friday at about five or six in the afternoon, in the hotel lobby we surprisingly ran into Henry Fariñas. Immediately he offers to take us out, he invites Facundo to go out to dinner that night.

[Gabriela Llanos]: That Friday night, my dad found out that the businessman who hired them in Guatemala, Estuardo Castañeda, wasn’t going to be able to take them to the airport the next day. He told Facundo about it during the meal, in front of Henry Fariñas, who immediately offered to take them in his car. Facundo gladly accepted, because they were going to the airport in Fariña’s white Range Rover, an SUV he was crazy about…

Like in a movie, dad remembers what happened on the morning of July 9th, 2011 minute by minute. It was 4:20am. They left the hotel Tikal for Guatemala’s Aurora airport.

[Percy]: Naturally, Facundo asked to sit next to Fariñas, as the copilot. I sat in the back behind Facundo and would get close to his seat often so he could hear me out of his left ear.

[Gabriela Llanos]: It was still night. Absolutely pitch black. There wasn’t anyone in the streets, nothing around the white Range Rover. Dad and Facundo were speaking, curiously, about the future. Henry Fariñas was driving in silence. They were four or five minutes from the airport, when all of the sudden…

[Percy]: A kind of dry firing started. The minutes started passing slowly, when I saw Henry Fariñas fall face down on the steering wheel and the SUV turned towards the right, perhaps because Fariñas’ body weight pressed his right foot on the accelerator. We crashed into a fire truck that was pulling out to respond to a call. I think that was our salvation at that moment because the hit men stopped firing.  I knew we were actors in a play we did not want to be part of. The point is, my world collapsed when I saw Facundo leaning his head on his left shoulder…I tried to lift him but I realized it was too late, there was no longer any possibility or hope that he was alive.

[Gabriela Llanos]: For a few seconds, dad thought he was also dead. But then he heard the sounds of a fire truck…

[Percy]: They surrounded the car and asked about the wounded, obviously. I told them it was Facundo. Saying simply Facundo doesn’t mean anything anywhere, but in Guatemala to say Facundo Cabral is a different thing. They worried even more and immediately approached and with a gesture they let me know there was nothing they could do.

[Gabriela Llanos]: Henry Fariña survived the attack, which, obviously was directed at him. All the bullets came through his window, on the driver’s side. Only one bullet escaped, the bullet that went through Facundo’s head…It was, fleeting…

[Percy]: Facundo did not have time, he did not notice anything at all, I’m certain of that.

[Gabriela Llanos]: My dad was taken out of the car by the firemen, who were worried because he was covered of blood. They examined him and realized he only had a few scrapes on his body and a black eye. The worst was his fear.

[Percy]: They say fear is always free, I am not sure why. It is not free. I felt, it emerged from the state of shock I was in. I was like a robot, an automaton, so much that I couldn’t even straighten my legs or arms. I felt there were seconds, maybe fractions of a second, in which I couldn’t think. But when I did, my mind completely overcame the state of fear, the state of panic.

[Gabriela Llanos]: When he recovered, my dad wanted to contact us, my sister and me. He wanted to be the one who told us that Facundo was dead and he was alive. He was worried about the news being circulated on the internet. And indeed, the news of the death of Facundo Cabral was running all over the world…

My dad traveled to Madrid. My sister and I went to get him from the airport. When we saw each other we hugged for what seemed like forever. Then, for a while, we pretended nothing had happened. But I knew, we all knew, because we were following the news, secretly, without commenting on it. That’s how we learned that the shooting was a reckoning against Henry Fariñas. That Fariñas, that cultured, elegant guy who was also apparently very serious about his work, was being sought by police for drug trafficking and human trafficking. Shortly after, he was captured and sentenced to 30 years in prison, the maximum sentence in Nicaragua.

[Newscasts]: Henry Fariñas supposedly used international artists to launder money. As confirmed by…

Today the businessman Henry Fariñas, who was wounded in the attack was captured at Managua’s International Airport, in Nicaragua…

Guilty, that’s how Nicaragua’s justice system declared the businessman Henry Fariñas who was the main target of the attack in which the Argentinean singer Facundo Cabral died in July, 2011…

[Gabriela Llanos]: On July 9th, 2013, it was the two year anniversary of Facundo Cabral’s assassination. We say a s s a s s i n a t i o n, with all its letters, and to us, it still feels like a terrible unfair movie.

[Percy]: Yes, when one tries to find an explanation for why things happen, why did it happen to me, why did it happen to Facundo…well, it can’t be explained. The truth is that…I simply think I was spared because I wasn’t on that day’s agenda and Facundo was, it was Facundo’s day. It was fate and fate was on my side, but it was against Facundo.

[Gabriela Llanos]: I see my dad doing well, as if he had grabbed onto life…We wrote a book together, and for him it was a kind of therapy, where he finally got out everything he had inside, he was finally able to cry…

Sometimes, when we are home and hear a song by Facundo, he gets a little angry, but luckily he gets over it quick.

[Daniel A.]: Gabriela Llanos is a journalist and writer. The book she wrote with her father, Percy, is called “Facundo Cabral: crónica de sus últimos días.” Gabriela also hosts the podcast Punto y coma de la vida. This story was edited by Camila Segura. The music is by Andrés Azpiri, Rémy Lozano, and Ana Tuirán. We’ll be right back with the last story.

[Daniel A.]: We’re back. The last story in this anthology is called “El exilio de Manuel Zelaya” and we published it back in 2012. Producer Annie Avilés traveled to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to speak with the protagonist of this unexpected yet, at the same time, so very Latin American upheaval.

[Manuel Zelaya]: They opened the door, I got off and they closed the door again. And I was left in the middle of the runway. President of Honduras, democratically elected by the people, in the middle of the runway, in my bedclothes, in Costa Rica.

[Daniel A.]: When Annie met Manuel Zelaya it was unbearably hot. But this man — tall, with a big mustache — was dressed all in black. He was wearing leather boots that are like his trademark. And he gave Annie a very simple card — it said: “José Manuel Zelaya – ex-president.” This is the story he told Annie, which I narrated in 2012.

[Manuel Zelaya]: We are always subject to that danger, always subject to the fact that man, the human being… brings out the animal inside. Always. The human being inside is a saint, but also a barbarian. And you can bring out the barbarian whenever you feel like it.

[Daniel A.]: The story of how this coup unfolded, of how Zelaya was expelled from his country and how he finally managed to return… is incredible. And equally incredible is the way he talks about it. Let’s imagine that scene: the former president sitting on his sofa… Some friends and family passing through the patio, a smell of fried plantain filling the house… He’s so relaxed: legs crossed, laughing as if he were telling a funny story at a gathering. He describes the most terrifying night of his life and yet he seems like all he needs is a cold beer and a pair of sunglasses. This is how he tells it:

[Manuel Zelaya]: Well at 5:30 the shooting started, 5:20… the shooting started, the gunfire. I woke up and threw myself out of bed just as I was, in pajamas, in sweats and a t-shirt. I came down here to the first floor, where you are, to see what was happening, when the gunfire started with greater and greater violence, the burst of machine gun fire. They broke down the doors and that’s where they captured me in the patio.

[Daniel A.]: The soldiers put him on a small plane that took him to Costa Rica. There they stopped on a secondary runway at the airport for a few minutes. There wasn’t even time to lower the plane’s stairs. A soldier told Zelaya to jump down to the pavement. He did. Right after, they took off.

[Manuel Zelaya]: They opened the door, I got off, and they closed the door again. [Laughter] And I was left in the middle… in the middle of the runway. President of Honduras, democratically elected by the people, in the middle of the runway, in my bedclothes, in Costa Rica.

[Manuel Zelaya]: Just then, coming from one of those hangars, a man was walking over… small… not small but not tall… medium height. He kept walking until he reached where I was, and said to me: “I have instructions from President Arias to invite you in.”

[Daniel A.]: In the first days of his exile he received at least three proposals to stay permanently outside of Honduras. He turned them down.

[Manuel Zelaya]: I told him, “No. I’m going now to the United Nations to denounce them. I’m going to the OAS. And besides, within four days I’m going back to Honduras, by air, by land, by sea, until I return to my homeland, because you cannot expel me from there.”

[Daniel A.]: So Zelaya began his fight to return to Honduras — a fight that would last two years. First, with the OAS leading the way. The scene sounds like something out of a comic book, where the heroes are presidents in suits and briefcases instead of capes and special powers. Cristina Fernández, from Argentina:

[Cristina Fernández]: The democratic restoration in Latin America is an achievement that cost too much.

[Daniel A.]: Fernando Lugo, from Paraguay:

[Fernando Lugo]: Non-intervention and the condemnation of all forms of dictatorship, colonialism, and imperialism.

[Daniel A.]: Rafael Correa, from Ecuador:

[Rafael Correa]: To the Honduran people, our most affectionate greetings. To their legitimate representative, constitutional president, José Manuel Zelaya.

[Periodista]: President Zelaya, we hear you on TeleSur. Your entire people can hear you.

[Daniel A.]: And Manuel Zelaya himself:

[Manuel Zelaya]: Look, look, they are really preventing the landing here… No, they won’t authorize it. They are threatening to send air force planes…

[Daniel Alarcón]: Each one in their own plane, flying toward Honduras… to try together what he could not accomplish alone: returning to his country.

[Manuel Zelaya]: They threatened us, they sent two planes to chase us and said they were going to shoot us down. And there were more than half a million people down on the runway, waiting for my return.

[Daniel Alarcón]: Four presidents, all democratically elected, together representing more than sixty million people; and behind them, the explicit support of almost every country in Latin America.

[Manuel Zelaya]: They wouldn’t even let Cristina’s plane land…

[Daniel A.]: In fact, none of them landed. And the hundreds of thousands of people who supported Zelaya waited for him at the airport, in vain. Tension was rising. And it ended badly.

[Periodista]: In Tegucigalpa, demonstrators in support of President Manuel Zelaya…

[Periodista]: The blood of our comrades has been spilled…

[Periodista]: They paid tribute to the two demonstrators who were killed…

[Periodista]: The coup plotters right now are not feeling the pain that the Honduran people are truly feeling for what happened yesterday.

[Daniel A.]: This was his most dramatic attempt to return home, but not the only one. He didn’t give up. Others would follow. The next time he would try to cross the border from Nicaragua — a symbolic gesture, more than anything.

[Manuel Zelaya]: I made it to the border and I went in and lifted the chain and crossed over… And I was there, and they took photos of me inside national territory. But the military were there to capture me.

[Daniel A.]: Zelaya had no choice but to return to Nicaraguan territory. In the end, he spends most of his exile — nearly a year and a half — in the Dominican Republic. And this is the key point: it’s not just that he changes homes… his identity also changes. He goes from being an important man, someone who signs decrees, who walks the red carpet and is honored at state dinners, to being a simple exile, a person who has to kill time, far from the action, on a Caribbean island. He remains an important man, but at the same time he is a foreigner. He is waiting.

[Manuel Zelaya]: Human relationships, which are ultimately power relationships in terms of interests, are difficult to navigate when you are in another society, because you become an unknown person. You are always a foreigner.

[Daniel A.]: From time to time, the Dominican president calls to check on him. From afar, Zelaya watches, powerless, as the situation in Honduras deteriorates more and more. The occasional family member or friend visits, but tedium is what predominates. Almost two years of tedium.

[Daniel A.]: Zelaya prefers not to say how he manages to return to Honduras.

[Manuel Zelaya]: I’ll leave that for history, because the people who collaborated could be sacrificed. I slipped in clandestinely, in a very clean way, passing through all the barriers over three days and three nights until I reached the Brazilian embassy.

[Daniel A.]: Why Brazil? Because he has a good relationship with Lula, the president. So when he arrives in Tegucigalpa he heads to the embassy. But he can’t get in. It’s Monday morning, and they leave him waiting at the door. There are protocols to be followed, and this is an international incident. The guard must call an embassy employee [phones begin to ring], who in turn must call the ambassador, who must call the Brazilian foreign minister, who must call Lula.

Everyone must, officially, decide whether Zelaya can enter or not. Meanwhile, he finds himself a few blocks from the Presidential Palace, the one he once led. The Honduran capital is full of political enemies, of soldiers and police who only want to arrest him — and he is on the street, waiting.

[Manuel Zelaya]: After two hours, they told me to come in. They put Foreign Minister Amorim on the phone for me. I said, “Minister, I have come here in peace to seek a dialogue, to see if we can restore the democratic thread. And I would like you to grant me refuge at the embassy.” Then he said, “Our home is your home, President.”

[Daniel A.]: Well, almost. Even so, it is an important gesture on the part of the Brazilians. The new government — the one that ousted him from power — is furious that Zelaya managed to get into the embassy. They block access and conditions inside begin to worsen. Zelaya keeps waiting. But this time he is not on a tropical island; he is under siege — within the borders of his own country, yes, but not at home.

[Manuel Zelaya]: Four months, surrounded, sleeping on the floor, on the ground… For days they cut off our water, electricity, phones, they had a cell phone blocker on us. Food was rationed… At night they played music, at full volume, so we couldn’t sleep, and they lit up the entire embassy with floodlights so that night became day.

[Manuel Zelaya]: At this very moment Honduras awaits the arrival of former president Manuel Zelaya. His supporters are waiting for him in the streets of Tegucigalpa after months of exile.

[Daniel A.]: After two years of negotiations and failed reconciliation attempts, they finally reach an agreement. Zelaya returns to his country, officially, in May 2011. Now he lives in his home — whose walls are still riddled with bullet holes. He leads a new political party. In the upcoming elections, his wife will be the presidential candidate.

Honduras, according to most of its citizens, including Zelaya himself, remains a disaster. The most dangerous country in the world, according to the United Nations. But for Zelaya, that is not the point.

[Manuel Zelaya]: I want to return to my home. My homeland, my people… I always knew I would come back, even if it was in a wooden box [laughter], but I was going to come back, even if just to be buried here, but I was going to come back.

[Daniel A.]: Annie Avilés is an American journalist who has written for The Atlantic, NPR and Vice, among others. This story was edited by Camila Segura. The music is by Andrés Azpiri, Rémy Lozano, and Ana Tuirán.

The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Adriana Bernal, Aneris Casassus, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Camilo Jiménez Santofimio, Germán Montoya, Sara Selva Ortiz, Samantha Proaño, Natalia Ramírez, Juan Pablo Santos, Bruno Scelza, David Trujillo, Elsa Liliana Ulloa, Luis Fernando Vargas, Franklin Villavicencio, and Mariana Zúñiga.

Carolina Guerrero is the CEO.

Radio Ambulante is a Radio Ambulante Estudios podcast, produced and mixed in Hindenburg PRO.

If you enjoyed this episode and want us to keep making independent journalism about Latin America, support us through Deambulantes, our membership program. Visit radioambulante.org/donar and help us keep narrating the region.

Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thanks for listening.