Quibdó, 13 April 2016

I would have liked to talk to you yesterday. I needed a broader perspective and the voice of someone wiser than me – and you’re comfortably into that category. There was a choice I had to make: carry on offering communications services (separately to my work in the Chamber) as a way of funding reading promotion, or focus on reading promotion and work out a way for it to fund itself?

The communications seed is growing very quickly. It’s something people need in the region and I have the tools to provide a good service. Still, it’s beginning to take time away from my new love – Motete, that is, and reading promotion, which has become an obsession.

I spoke to Juangui, I listened to myself and I listened to him, and his words helped me remember what happens when I take on too many things that distance me from what I came here for, namely the chance to devote myself to what I love the most, to the things that fill my soul. You also know what happens to me, you know I get sick, and depressed, that I get into a state and before I know it I’m not even strong enough to get out of bed.

These have been months without many dualities. So this one is welcome. Love wins in the end, as it always must. I won’t give in to the temptation to be a great comms specialist or start the comms company that Chocó needs. I’ll keep working at being Seño Velia, who reads stories and who people look at (most people here don’t see you, they look at you. They say, for example: I looked at you yesterday when you were at the market) in the neighbourhood with her motete full of books, because she’s convinced that’s how we can turn all this around.

I’m sending you love and I’d love to see you. I hope the day comes soon; for a long time now I’ve been nurturing the idea of seeing you in person. The last time I wrote, you said we should meet up when I was next in Medellín, but I haven’t been back. I haven’t needed to. My life is here now, and although my husband isn’t yet living with me full-time, he tries to come fairly often. That means going to Medellín is no longer such a priority, but I’d definitely like to go, to see you, to see Juana, Liliana, Luis Miguel, Juangui, so many friends I haven’t seen for ages. I suppose this is what big life changes are like.

Hugs,

Vel