What I'm Doing in July

2009-07-03

Barnetegi-
Maizpide

On Monday I arrived to Maizpide, one of the many barnetegis located in the basque country. This particular one is located in a small town named Lazkao which has a creek running through the middle of it with some decent-sized fish and, the other day, a dead rat. It is not a suitable creek for swimming and epitomizes the adulturated version of nature found throughout the basque country and throughout most of europe for that matter.

Anyway, Maizpide is one of the most renowned barnetegis in the basque country and features many newspaper articles attached to one entryway board that attests to this fame. After the first five days here I have to say that from an academic standpoint this fame is well deserved. The teachers definitely know their material and, as far as the facility itself, for 800euros one gets a place to live for an entire month including bathroom and shower facilities a small dresser, desk, bunkbed, gameroom with pool, foosball, and pingpong, a movie theatre, laundry room, library and three meals/day. This coupled with the eight hours/day of classroom time make a seemingly great deal.

Nevertheless, eight hours per day in a classroom becomes very tedious very fast. The atmosphere is probably what makes the experience most worthwhile. I share a room with two other guys, and in general the other students are very nice. Since everyone is doing the same thing here, it is really easy to make friends. Most students are from the basque country, but there are a few from other parts of spain such as madrid. One student lived in Palo Alto and did his PHD at the center for basque studies in Reno.

Another interesting experience…Today as I passed a cafe someone turned and shouted at me, “Hey Yanquee! Go Home! I gave him the finger and then he stood up and started to approach me. I thought it must have been one of the many locals I met when I went out to the local bars last night. I asked him who he was and he turned out to be a person people had been telling me about, an ex Maizpide student who had come back to visit some friends. This student as I had been told was from California and had a mom from the US and a dad from the Basque Country. So I finally met him, Jon, who graduated from CalPoly, a real-live Basque from the United States. We spoke for a while in Basque and later in English. Although a strange experience, I remained ecstatic. Finally I had met someone from practically the same place with the same language repertoire as I.

My class (and the rest of the school for that matter) is mostly composed of spanish speaking people, but there are also a few people from different places. There is a guy from Iparralde (france) who has only studied in Euskaltegis in France. He has a very thick french accent whenever he speaks Basque. There's also another guy in my class from the Netherlands. He is very good at basque and picks up grammatical points extremely quickly to which I am quite envious. After five days of being here I am already somewhat of a celebrity. People always ask me the same questions to which I'm getting pretty good at answering. The fact that I'm such a unique case here really facilitates making friends. I am having some difficulty adjusting to the custom of going to bars all the time to socialize. I just don't see much value in social interaction in a place where you can't even hear the person your talking to.

Already I am learning quite a bit at this school and have realized that the grammatical points that we will be studying in this class are structures that are not even used by native speakers because of their complexity. Alas I am very satisfied with my elective class, The “Hika mode”. This is a colloquail way to express “you”as opposed to the more general “Zuka mode”. In Hika the verb forms change for the person you’re talking to. When Hika is used the YOU verbs not only change, but also the verb forms for I, WE, Third person, and they. It is a rather widely used form that is not studied in schools.
What the hell am I talking about??!! Here’s an example

English:
1: Hey! How are you?
2: I’m good, and you?
1: I’m fine. What did you say to Jon today?
2: Hmmm…I don’t know. I didn’t tell him anything.

Normal Basque (Zuka):
1: Aizu! Nola zaude?
2: Ongi nago, eta zu?
1: Ongi nabil. Zer esan diozu Joni gaur?
2: Ba…Ez dakit. Ez diot ezer esan.

Hika (for talking with a male):
1:Aizak! Nola hago?
2: Ongi nagok, eta hi?
1: Ongi nabilek. Zer esan diok Joni gaur?
2: Ba…Ez zekiat. Ez zioat ezer esan.

Hika (for talking with a female):
1: Aizan! Nola hago?
2: Ongi nagon eta hi?
1: Ongi nabilen. Zer esan dion Joni gaur?
2: Ba…Ez zekinat. Ez zionat ezer esan.


Ah, Basque…There’s always something new to learn. As the Italian guy who I met on the train on the way here said, “Basque: the world’s most difficult language!”
One thing is for sure, if you taught the language you’d never have a paucity of lessons to teach.