Home: A Principle of Humanity
Shortly after my arrival in the Karo community in southern Ethiopia, children painted my face with natural clay, ochre, and white chalk in a spontaneous, playful act. The patterns—traditionally tied to beauty, identity, and belonging— served as a welcoming gesture, an initiation into community.
Nineteen years have passed since I left my home country, Colombia, nine of them without seeing my family. Over that time, the idea of home shifted for me, from a fixed place into something more intimate and profound. I dedicated those years to fostering resilience through the arts with people living in refugee camps in Greece, and it was through this work that I traveled to Ethiopia, where I composed lullabies with orphaned children and unhoused mothers.
There, I also sought out the Indigenous communities of the Omo Valley, often called the "Cradle of Humankind," where music runs through daily life. I was welcomed into their homes and invited into everyday rhythms, dance, song, storytelling, ceremony, and into countless moments of laughter and shared joy.
In that welcome, I found something essential about our nature: home as a principle of humanity, the capacity to recognize in another our own totality, the reflection of a shared journey, and the place from which human evolution unfolds through love.