The Decline and Fall of English

Last night we went to the Kursaal. (The big building from outerspace that landed next to the ocean and river in the neighborhood of Gros) We went to a fundraiser event for the employees of "Egunkaria," a Basque-language newspaper founded in 1990 which was raided in 2003 by the Guardia Civil (Spanish, national police force) because of suspected relations with the terrorist group ETA. No proof was ever found to convict the handful of employees that were imprisoned and tortured, so they were eventually released. However, they await another trial in Madrid and thus need money for all of the legal expenses. So that's where the thousands of Basque spectators come in. Each ticket to the event cost 20 Euros but we managed to find five tickets for free from a generous lady at the last minute. (Because we don't want to support terrorism) The newspaper has not since returned to publish, and many suspect that its closure and that of other publications (This is not an isolated case) is due to its leftist tendencies and not due to any actual wrongdoings. Therefore, there have been massive protests.

The whole political situation is basically like what happens to the animal rights and environmental activists in the United States, but on a more racist, macro level. Just another purging of the left in another corner of the world. So if someone asks you about the basque country feel free to tell them that it's a society full of terrorists; 2,589,000 to be exact. Having said that, it's basically a miracle that I'm still alive.

The event itself was pretty enjoyable. I'd never even been inside of the Kursaal before and was pleased with the speeches, poetry, music, and general solidarity of the atmosphere. A few performances (Ken 7, Erramun Martikorena, Mikel Urdangarin) were from artists that I'm familiar with, so I enjoyed seeing them live.

In other news:
I ran a marathon today. Well, part of one anyway. I was laughing. When I left the house this morning I realized there were a bunch of people running in the street, so I joined them because it's not everyday that you can run in the street. I caught up with a biker and shouted at him, "Aizu! zein da lasterketa hau?" And he informed me that it was the Donostia marathon. "Wow, What a coincidence!" I thought as I zoomed by another group of fatigued runners. I was just doing my hour-long, three beaches run from one side of the town to the other and back, while the others were huffin-and-puffin down the streets after three hours running through the city. Since Donostia is a pretty small city enclosed by mountains the participants were forced to go on a circuit. Not the most ideal marathon. I, on the other hand, enjoyed running my 12k and having people offer me water and cheer me on through parts of it.
"Aurrera!" "Aupa!" "Segi Campeon!" "Venga."


Kursaal


A Protest Denouncing the Events against "Egunkaria" in Donostia


The Audience Last Night

First off, it's nice to be living with a family that openly talks with me about the illusory-world we live in, communism, socialism, corporate takeover of the world, environmental impacts created by society, decline in the quality and safety of foods, and absurdities like restless leg syndrome, which are the things we talked about tonight at the dinner table. As I told them about restless leg syndrome Mikel could not stop laughing, and it almost brought a tear to my eye to experience the clarity with the world-view we shared. We also talked about Basque and how in Europe these days everything is converting to English. Since Karmele is a teacher at the University of the Basque Country she was commenting on how nowadays her colleagues aren't promoting the use of the language as much, which she sees as a greater trend occurring in Europe and in the world. I.e. A great banalisation of the world.

This solidifies my reason for wanting to come to the Basque Country in the first place. To experience a place that stands as a gleaming example against this trend. After all, although it is widely studied, not so many people know English here. Moreover, Basque is one of the oldest languages in the world and also one of the smallest. The result is a society full of people who promote the use of an exotic language despite the inconveniences this may cause for the greater world society. It is inspirational to be a part of that.

I had been getting lazy with my Basque and reading a bunch of crap in English, but recently I realized I needed to keep going forward with my studies even though I'm not receiving credit for them because it has become a hobby. If someone does not practice their hobby they start to feel an emptiness which is what I was feeling. So lately, I've been setting some goals for myself such as:
-Write at least a page in Basque about a topic of my choice this weekend. (I haven't written anything in Basque in over one month and have noticed a significant stasis with my development.)
-Finish the book I'm reading before I head back home. (New York, New York by Gotzon Garate. I like this book because each chapter can be read on it's own, without connection to a greater story. Each chapter documents real experiences witnessed and held by the Basque author over the years that he lived in some of the most poor and dangerous neighborhoods of the famous city. Some rather dark subject matter such as murder, drug addiction, prostitution, broken families, disease; but it is nonetheless a light read.)

I had my Friday four-hour Basque class tonight at the Euskaltegi, Legazpi 6 tonight. I love that class! There are only 5 students in the class so it's really personal. Tonight I was in a really funny mood and just kept laughing the whole class. Laughing is good for class it shifts everything in my mind, it takes everything I don't understand and turns it into something I can laugh at until I figure it out. This is ultimately more productive than getting all serious, furrowing my brow, and trying to understand something when I'm just not ready to "get it." The teacher has been taking some great steps to provide me with opportunities to study what I want. Today she gave me about 70 different basque songs and also directed me to my new favorite website:
http://mediateka.fonoteka.com/orokorra.php?idi=eus&sec=3

Tomorrow my friend is going to take me to another Bertsolaritza competition. She says she doesn't want me to get bored like I did last time. I probably will. Although the other day I understand my first verse which I was pretty excited about.

Elizondo

The view that made me realize I had already been there

Weekend in Elizondo

For the past two weekends I’ve couchsurfed Basque country style. I was a bit surprised that there actually are couchsurfers from the Basque country, since the couchsurfing project goes against Basque social sentiment. E.g. Aversion to foreign things; closed-circle social stratification. Needless to say, I took advantage of the language search feature on the website and screened everyone from the province of Nafarroa and the provinces of the Iparraldea to make sure that they knew Basque as an expert and would be an adequate host for me. After sending messages to ten different people I attained a 20% reply rate (two people, both from Nafarroa).

So, last weekend I went to the town of Lesaka where I spent two weeks doing a Barnetegi during the summer. I stayed with a 35yr old guy named Iñaki. He told me a story about a cross on top of one of the surrounding hillsides, saying that a somewhat crazy guy had climbed up to the mountain with an ax and chopped the cross down at the base. So they rebuilt the cross, making it out of concrete. As he told me this story Iñaki pointed out to me that the very guy who chopped the cross down had just walked by. Then we walked up a hillside where Iñaki showed me his baratzea. It was full of apple trees, chestnuts and kiwis. He explained to me that anything can grow in Lesaka especially given the right microclimate. (I spotted a very healthy looking patch of Banana trees growing on a hillside.)Since Iñaki couldn’t offer me a place to sleep he made reservations at the local hostel where I stayed during the barnetegi.

This weekend I traveled to Elizondo after contacting a host named Idoia. Although she was having her 30th birthday party she was more than eager to have me stay with her. So I left Saturday from the bus station with a backpack, a jacket, a scarf and a bottle of Blanc Pescador in hand. I passed through some very romantic towns with old buildings and church steeples surrounding riversides until I arrived in Elizondo. When I got off the bus there were three girls waiting for me, they walked me to a car and we all went to Idoia’s house where she was busy preparing falafels for her birthday dinner. There were sixteen of us at the dinner.

Idoia and her friend Ainara work in the town of Zugarramurdi just next to the border which is a small town famous for its witch caves. They explained to me that they work both in the museum and also giving tours, and Ainara was explaining to me how she was nervous the day before because she had to give a tour in English to the USAC group.

I was very happy at dinner with my decision to come to Elizondo and knew that I was going to have a great night. After dinner we exited the house and walked towards the center of town where all the bars were at. As we rounded the turn on an old street we came upon a river. As soon as I stepped on to the bridge and looked up stream I realized I had already visited Elizondo once before. As the group all headed towards the bars I decided to go off on a side street and do some exploring, so I caught up with them later. At 2am wandering the streets I walked past cats, miniature ponies, and vegetable gardens with giant gourds and dried corn stalks, old houses and was in an extremely good mood and excited about the night ahead of me.

I found our group and then we hung out in the bar for a little while and I talked to some of Idioa’s friends and danced a bit. Then at about 4am we all took the one kilometer bus ride to the Diskoteka, Lur, which was located in a converted warehouse at the outskirts of town. We had to pay 9 euros to enter the club with a huge dance floor and a big screen TV which projected the videos of the songs being played. It was a pretty spectacular place (in the Guy Debord sense of the term) because all the videos showed images of super model girls in thongs and tight clothes dancing around the rapper or whoever’s video it was. This meant that the dj only played popular songs, and didn’t even bother mixing them together. Lame! But, I had lots of fun anyway. It was interesting because although I only had three or four drinks the entire night, just the atmosphere and the people I was with influenced my state to a large degree. I guess I could say I chose to have a good time, but I just knew it as soon as I arrived to Idoia’s house.

The diskoteka closed at 7:30 so we left and hung out in the street for awhile. I finally got back to Idoia’s house and was asleep by nine.

New Semester

When August ended I left the barnetegi in Amorebieta with one of my classmates. She dropped me off in her town, Deba. From their I took the EuskoTren to Donostia, called Fernando (my new Colombian landlord and housemate) and took a taxi to my new home on calle Miracruz in the neighborhood Gros. It was a very nicely located house: right next to the river, 3 blocks from the beach overlooking the triangle shaped Pinudi Plaza. It was a hot, beautiful day.

Fast forward one month later and I find myself in a new house in a different neighborhood, Antiguo. Antiguo is located on the opposite end of town, and is rather separate from the rest of Donostia. I'm living with a family and am relieved of the household duties I had at my last place. Now I have more time to study and do other things. I'm living with a middle aged couple named, Mikel and Karmele. They have two daughters, 18 and 21 who are doing ERASMUS programs in Berlin and London. This family normally takes students through USAC, but since they applied too late they found my ad posted in the University and contacted me.

Karmele and Mikel are euskaldun berriak, which means they have learned Basque as a second language. They both study english in their spare time, and I nearly piss myself everytime Mikel tries to speak it with me. He has a really fun voice and he totally overly exaggerates the american accent. The other night he did an impression of the accent without saying any actual words, which cracked me up. Just imagine the villain in a John Wayne-style western film with a bunch of marbles in his mouth.

Karmele is very friendly and talkative mostly because she knows more Basque than Mikel. (I also know more Basque than Mikel). She had to achieve the title EGA via Basque language studies so that she could be a professor here at the local University. We live three minutes on foot from the campus where she teaches Child Education, and this just so happens to be the same building where I'm studying Spanish in the afternoons.

I showed her the picture from my last post and she couldn't believe it. She still hasn't found out who put the plant there. She always tells me things about the university and the people there. For example, she told me she thinks my spanish teacher is a really strict, unfriendly person, so I related a story about how one day I made a joke in class about how I couldn't do my homework because I got locked out of my house in the rain with my book and the rain caused all the ink to bleed together. My teacher did not catch the exaggerated sardonicism in my voice and started to lecture me about not doing homework. Hahaha. It's nice to be able to relate to my new mom and, because of her, the people who work at the university recognize me and, because I've met some of them, they always say hi to me on the way to class.

Karmele, Mikel and I always get into really interesting conversations, and although I haven't even been here a week I'm already at ease with my new living situation.

This Was at the University Just Outside of my Spanish Class

Photos

Use this link to view my picasa photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/insipidtoast

Lesaka

2009-08-11

Lesaka

The town I’m in right now has a population of 2,700 people. It is part of a group of towns in upper-nafarroa known as the Bortziriak (5 villages). These are: Bera, Lesaka, Igantzi, Etxalar and Arantza.
This region borders Gipuzkoa to the north and west and France to the north and east. Nafarroa is no longer part of the coalition of the provinces of Araba, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa which make up the Basque autonomous region known as Euskadi. This means it receives little to no support from the government to help the language. Therefore, the barnetegi I’m in right now is run by IKA which is an Euskaltegi based in Gasteiz, the capital of Araba.

All the towns of the bortziriak region are rather small and there is no intercity bus service, but rather a bus that runs occasionaly through the towns from Donostia. I arrived on one of these. I was one of the two passengers on the standard size bus, and when the driver stopped in Lesaka I didn’t even realize it was where I needed to get off until he shouted at me. I walked about a quarter kilometre with my camping backpack, suitcase and backpack to an old building, the Barnetegi. It’s right in the middle of town, with a bar named kattu, kitchen, and dining room on the bottom floor.

This Barnetegi is a bit different from the last. Instead of grammar classes eight hours/day we finish at 2pm and eat lunch then do different activities, excursions, workshops, etc. In the afternoon. We are broken up into teams and have to help setting the tables for meals, clearing them off, and bringing the others coffee and tea and desert. Smoking is allowed in the dining room, so I often have that smell on my clothes after eating, which can be somewhat of a nuisance since i’m from California.

The first week I wasn’t feeling it, but I’m starting to get into the swing of things now. Sometimes it’s hard to be in a classroom during the summer…sometimes it’s just plain hard to be in a classroom. I couldn’t really think of anything else that would be interesting to do here during the summer. I would most likely be really bored and or lonely otherwise. At least in the barnetegis I have plentiful opportunities to make friends, learn new things, visit new places, get my meals and my sleeping arrangements taken care of, and gather new life experiences. Yeah, it’s a pretty nice set up.

I’m sharing a room with three girls. It’s an interesting experience to say the least. There was another older woman with us the first two nights, but she realized her snoring was bothering us, so she decided to leave. I’m on a floor with a balcony. The balcony leads from one side of the building to the other. On one end is our room and on the other is the bathroom. Every morning when I look from the balcony at the old church steeple and houses, and the mountains shrouded in mist I feel like I’m in a different world, like something out of a fairy tale.

The village itself is quite different from any place I’ve ever been. Everything is old. There’s a small stream running through the center of town with some disproportianately large fish, numerous bars, a few shops, and lots of baratzeak (vegetable gardens) peppered throughout the town. That’s one side of town. The other side of town (literally almost half the town) is taken up by the industrial sector, featuring one huge iron factory that provides jobs to some 700 people. It’s quite the contrast. Lesaka is, nonetheless, a very friendly place. Whenever I’m running through town people always salute me with a customary “Aio!”

Today we walked to a neighboring town, Igantzi to visit the last basketmaker in the Bortziriak region. Crafting a basket right in front of us he explained to us that there used to be 40 or so basquet makers. With his hands that have literally been deformed from years of basket making he explained to us that he constructs all of his baskets using only chestnut wood, and that chestnut trees have been recently infected by a lethal fungal disease.

Earlier today as I was going back to school after eating my morning pintxo I ran into Rafa, the guy who gave us a tour of the town the first day. An older man in his sixties or seventies. Before the tour began he said out loud to everyone that they deserved recognition for learning basque and then he came up to me and shook my hand and said that I REALLY deserved recognition for being from California and studying Basque. He had told us about the church and other touristy things, and also commented on some of the little details in the town, such as the statue work on this one balcony that featured lions as supports intricately endowed with barrabilak (testicles) and zakilak (penises).

Anyway, when I ran into Rafa today, he was pushing a stroller with a little girl inside of it. He led me into his house asking me if I wanted to see the Lesaka version of the San Fermin festival. At the bottom of his house he had set up a little model of some of the town complete with the river, figurines, and the city hall. He also had some music rigged up to go along with it. His friend just so happened to be dropping off a box of fresh produce from his baratze at the same time, which reminded me to ask if there were any opportunities to get to know how the baratzeak function. Rafa, nonetheless, suggested I meet up with him and his friends in the night to talk about it at a bar.

So I went to the bar tonight at 8pm and met his friends and told them a little bit about myself, and my interest in basque, gardens, food production and what have you. We arranged that I will go tomorrow to visit one friend’s baratzea and Rafa suggested I bring a notebook to write some things down.

So tomorrow at 7pm I will dive head first into the secret world of the Basque baratzea!

To be continued…