Dear Bunuel

LBuildings have a soul, I am convinced of this, impregnated with the stories, the dramas, the miseries and greatness, the sorrows and joys that have passed through their walls, endow them with personality and a spirit that makes them beat with a life of their own.

It may be for this reason that, as happens with people with whom you immediately feel comfortable or not, in some spaces you perceive feelings of well-being or discomfort.

In the “Buñuel” I feel good, it is the beloved, vilified, controversial and politicized Luis Buñuel Community Social Center.

A historic building on whose site a convent was located and which later has been from a museum to the town hall headquarters for years, until it became the Luis Buñuel institute, which is the one for which it is most popularly known.

Currently self-managed, ceded by the previous city council and hated by the current one, which has decided before the end of the legislature shortly, to take it away from the people of the Gancho neighborhood, people who on the other hand do not own too many things.

What they want to sell to public opinion is that a senior center for the neighborhood is going to be located in the building, but the reality is that there is currently no budget to carry it out and also a few meters away there is already a senior center of the consistory that is La casa Amparo, with which all this plot in itself does not make much sense.

I am not going to go into legalism or politics, I am going to tell what I know and what I have experienced firsthand. El Buñuel is generous, it works through an assembly in which the activities to be carried out are decided and approved, and which are as diverse and open as life itself. The first times I went there I went to participate in events of the association of friends of the Saharawi people in which I collaborate (diversity, solidarity).

Later I began to participate in the Community Theatre, which as its name indicates is from the community and for the community, a free activity in which I have been immersed for 6 years now, and of which more than 50 people (community, culture ).

For a year I have collaborated whenever I can, although it is very little, next to the incredible people who support this project based on many hours of their time in the Solidarity Pot.

Every Saturday hot food is given to more than two hundred people, food, clothes and toys for the children, this has a lot of work behind it of course that it is much more than what is seen, and many small businesses that donate continuously so that this project can be carried out (solidarity, volunteering).

On Tuesdays I also usually go to the Anthropological Theater laboratory, an introspective culture initiative that is free although a voluntary and conscious contribution (culture) is requested.

And most recently, with my group Ruda de bruja we have taken some of our holistic therapy events to Buñuel, also with a voluntary contribution so that all people who wish to can participate (therapies, spirituality).

These are my experiences, in addition to being able to use the library and many other things, I do not know exactly all the activities and groups that take place and have a place in El Buñuel but I speak from my vision and I wonder why this desire to dismantle and destroy something that already works well by itself, a free project forged with a lot of love, an initiative that is sustained and does not cause problems.

Dear Bunuel