Distriandina
Cesar Quintero
I was born in Colombia. I came here for political reasons because I was part of a left-wing group that opposed the government, and it was life-threatening for me to stay there.
Three years later, I received refugee status. Only after that could my wife and I start thinking long-term here in the UK, and plan to set up a business. I started in the communications business, then we moved into food and drinks, and later, we moved to Elephant and Castle and started a dance hall.
One of our most popular days was Sundays. We called it the “Viejoteca Dominguera”. The name comes from the Cauca Valley, in Cali, where many years ago they created places where only people above 40 could enter and listen to nostalgic music.
All images courtesy Distriandina
It was such a success that even young people were trying to get in, and they had to open it to everyone.
Our viejoteca was a total success. Then, COVID-19 arrived, and we had to close it down.
Here you could find 40, 50, 60-year-olds dancing. Nowadays they ask me: “When are you going to open again? We need a place like yours, we don’t have anywhere to go.”
It´s been almost 24 years that I’ve been going through these ups and downs. Had I thrown in the towel, we wouldn’t be here today. The failures that we had were very sad, but we came back stronger. And we will keep going.
