Quibdó, 14 January 2018

A year after first starting work on this building, I finally feel like it’s the way I dreamed. It’s a collection of warm, special spaces. A collection of welcoming details. With books all around, neatly arranged. Everything has its place. It’s like a single area and at the same time it’s like a cultural centre with various sections. That makes me very happy. Last year we managed to pay off a lot of our debts, much more than we were expecting towards the end.

Motete, now, is like a baby learning to walk. On February 3rd we’ll be one year old, and I’d say it’s a healthy baby. There’s a long way to go, but it has a bright future. There’s a clarity to what we’re doing, and although that could change, it means our work is focused.

I’m enjoying my course and got a good mark for my first assignment.

The Ministry of Municipal Education got in touch because they want to collaborate with us. The fear hasn’t gone, the risks haven’t gone, and nor have the days when we’re low on funds and it seems like there’s no solution. There are still days when no one turns up, because the city still prefers to drink and show off in the bars and clubs, in the luxury establishments built with cash of dubious origin. And when that happens, I make a delicious coffee, cut a slice of musa paradisiaca plantain cake and sit down to savour it in a corner of Casa Motete, while I read one of the thousands of poems that live in this house.

I couldn’t go to Bahía Solano for New Year. I always miss it, but now I feel a fullness that reminds me of the sea. An immense fullness. And that fullness drowns my fears.

In a very fluid way, without putting up a fight, I’ve turned my back on flirting, and changed the conversations I have with friends who were once lovers. I no longer feel at all attracted to men who aren’t my husband. And I know it seems like I’m only saying this as a strategy to please you, but there’s no need to lie or invent masks here by now. What seems to be going on is that every part of my life is full. Motete is like a lover demanding all my attention, and I’m comfortable with that. Words in the form of stories or nursery rhymes haven’t yet come to me this year. But I know they will, and plenty of them. By now I’m used to the way everything here comes at the right time.

There are things about this city I find difficult; social dynamics that make me ask a lot of questions. I notice the way some people in the social and cultural sector are determined to get ahead whatever it takes. I also see the formation of black elites, or Quibdó elites, which appear to divide this already divided city even further. I’ve had to find my own style in my relationships here, and in the place this organisation is finding for itself. I can’t bear being very visible; I can’t bear the idea of becoming what people here call an icon. I don’t want to be the leader of anything. But I know that much of what I do inevitably sends me towards some of those things. I want this year, in which we’re going to grow as an organisation, to be an opportunity to find a healthy and comfortable position for myself. I want it to be Motete and not Velia Vidal. I just want to keep being Seño Velia.

We’ll face a lot of challenges this year, and our costs will be high as well. But after making it through year one, I’m almost certain we’ll manage everything.

I want to keep counting on you this year, and I hope to see you again. I don’t know when, or how, because I have no plans to visit Medellín. But life always sorts something out. Maybe this time, instead of watching a sunset in Medellín, we’ll watch one in Quibdó.

Big hug,

Vel