The passionate all-rounder

Tilburg University is a melting pot full of interesting people. Student Rebekka Rohe finds and portraits them. Today: Diego, who moved from Venezuela to Chile and finally to Curacao during his childhood. Since 2008, he lives in Tilburg and studies Sociology.Diego is not the kind of guy who enjoys being in the center of attention. Because of this, he prefers to stay anonymous. The thoughtful and very sympathetic young man had a long journey before ending up in Tilburg. Due to the dictatorship in Chile in the 70’s, his parents moved to Venezuela before Diego’s birth. After a couple of years, they went back to their home country, only to face the backlash of this regime, which resulted in another migration, but this time to Curacao.

Talking about his life so far, Diego critically assesses the problems he had to face. “To build up long-lasting relationships is difficult when you constantly move, many of them fade away. The longer I stay at one place, the more comfortable I feel.” Later on, he would like to move to a place he belongs. Where that is? “I’m not sure, maybe Curacao, there is no real place I belong to.” Yet, his international experiences do not leave Diego resentful. Through getting to know different cultures he was able to see differences between societies and different approaches across cultures. These experiences shaped one of the many passions in his life:  Sociology, which deals exactly with those topics. Nevertheless, Diego is not single-minded about his future, but open-minded and self-initiative. “I feel most free when I can run my own business. It’s always been a family tradition to be a freelancer.” Already now, Diego has his own business, selling coffee, rum and wine.

Even though Diego is very happy with his career as it is going so far, his biggest passion is probably music. “My mother is very musical and always sang to us. When I wanted to learn to play the guitar myself, she had the patience to teach me”, he states. From this followed his first punk-rock band at the tender age of 14 and a love for festivals, jazz concerts and all different kinds of other musical events. “I felt moved by the music. It touched my soul and thus was unlike any other passion I had”. If there were no worries about money, Diego would love to completely focus on music. Yet, this does not mean that he would sacrifice everything for his dream: “in the end, friends and family matter more than any professional career”.

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