Author: Ricardo Torres Ortega
Many of us have experienced the ambivalence of living our lives between Sibaté and Bogotá. This itinerant lifestyle has been lived by Armando Parra, a native of Sibaté, raised in the village of San Benito, yet someone who studied and worked mostly in Bogotá. His journey between the two cities has also been a passage between culture and public administration.
As a child, he remembers his kindergarten, led by teacher Mercedes Peñaloza, where he stood out for already knowing how to read and write upon arrival. It turns out that Armando had found a treasure at home: a trunk full of the books his mother had studied with. Through these, he learned early on and began to develop a love for culture, the arts, and literature. This was because his mother studied through the now-defunct Radio Sutatenza, where students completed basic and secondary education through modules sent by mail.
At first, he wanted to study literature. However, he was also fascinated by the police officers from the academy near San Benito — their helmets, uniforms, and the helicopters that arrived — and at one point, he considered a military career. Out of all these childhood dreams, after completing his secondary education and technical studies at SENA, he set his sights on political science. He even applied to the Social Sciences program at the Universidad Distrital.
However, a friend suggested: “Why don’t you study public administration instead? It’s not as ambitious as politics and it’s much more grounded in what you want to do.” So, Armando enrolled in Public Administration at ESAP, seeing it as an opportunity to read extensively and prepare for a field that was both practically useful and of great personal interest.
As life would have it, Armando ended up working multiple times in public institutions related to culture, such as IDARTES (Dramatic Arts Management) and in the Subdirectorate of Cultural Facilities (Teatro El Ensueño, Jorge Eliecer Gaitán Theater).
Just as his life continued to intertwine public administration with cultural work, fate brought him back to his hometown. He now serves as the Head of Culture in the Social Development Secretariat, once again weaving together the threads that have always been part of Armando Parra’s life journey.
