|
|
||
|
|
The Basque Studies Summer Session Abroad, 1981 by Sandra Ott, University of Oxford Understanding ways of life that are different from our own is not an easy task, as anyone who has traveled abroad, reflectively and with a proper sensitivity to other people, knows well. During a six-week period from the end of June until early August, the thirteen students who participated in the BSP summer session abroad were exposed to social, cultural and physical conditions in the Basque Country which seemed – and indeed often were – unlike those to which they, as Americans, were accustomed. Together with their three professors, the students learned that it is not always easy to accept, with good humour and courage, circumstances that give rise to discomfort; but, to the credit of the entire group, the problems that rose were handled in an even-tempered way and were not allowed to detract from the importance of the experience. The summer school was convened in late June at Landagoyen, a modern and comfortable facility in the town of Ustaritz and within ten kilometers of Bayonne and the coast. After a two-week stay at Landagoyen, we went to Pamplona to see part of the San Fermin festival and then to Vitoria. For various reasons, the hotel in Vitoria did not provide ideal conditions in which to live and to study. Although Professor Bilbao and I tried to secure another facility for the group, we were unable to do so until the fifth week of the session; for the other accommodations in the south, known to be acceptable, were fully booked. The one facility that did have rooms was the hotel spa in Urberuaga (Vizcaya), where we spent the last week of school. With a Basque-speaking staff, its amusing late 19th century architecture, and pleasant atmosphere, the hotel proved to be a successful choice. As in past years, the school sought to provide its students with instruction both of an academic and a non-academic nature, to combine in university courses the formal study of Basque history (Professor Bilbao), the Basque language and linguistics (Professor Jacobsen), and, last summer, Old World Basque Culture (Dr. Ott) with the informally acquired knowledge gained from day-trips to places of historical and cultural interest. Students were able to audit or to take these courses for undergraduate or graduate credit. Owing to restrictions placed on us by our budget, we found that we could not afford to take as many excursions as we would have liked; but those trips we did take contributed greatly to our knowledge of the Basque Country and its people. Among the excursions taken in the north were those to the Musée Basque in Bayonne, the market in St.-Jean-Pied- de-Port, and to the shepherding region of the Aldudes, where several students had relatives. For both staff and students, locating and meeting ‘old country’ friends and relatives of American Basques were particularly rewarding experiences. In the Aldudes a student and I found some of his cousins – in the field where they were making hay on a hot, clear day. Excited about the unexpected arrival of an unknown kinsman from the United States, the family insisted at once upon giving us zerbait edatera, something to drink, and showing us their house. During our stay in the French Basque Country, we also made a day-trip to the community of Ste-Engrâce (Haute-Soule), where I have lived and have done anthropological research. In Ste-Engrâce, we were graciously and merrily received by the Eyheralt family of the house Goillart, where the etxekandere Madgie showed the students how to make a ewes-milk cheese – of which Goillart produces some 500 in a year! In spite of our protests the students and I were seated in the old kitchen of Goillart at the best table. Madgie and her husband Felix had decided that we were in need of some good Basque home-cooking – Madgie’s own vegetable soup, her paté and cheese, and salad from the garden. Last month Madgie asked me in her letter to thank the student who sent the photographs of her family and our group and to give all the summer school students the goraintziak of Goillart. In the Spanish Basque Country we went on excursions to Guernica and the caves at Santimamiñe, Donostia, a winery in Alava, the site of a Roman town near Vitoria, and to a number of Basque fishing ports. During our stay in Vitoria, we owed much to Sr. Pedro Sancristoval, director of the Council of Culture for the Diputación Foral of Alava, whose charm, hospitality, and extensive knowledge of the Basque Country were greatly appreciated by us. In addition to being our guide on several excursions, Sr. Sancristoval entertained us at his eating society – normally an exclusively male culinary domain. He cooked and served a splendid dinner for us; and, I fear, was fined by his society for having allowed a woman to enter the society’s kitchen! Having consumed a lot of good food and good wine, we had the additional pleasure of listening to a well-known singer of Basque songs, Gorka Knörr. During our stay in Urberuaga, I took my students to Murélaga, one of the Basque communities about which William Douglass has written and about which the students had read. After having an aperitif with the local priest in his house, we walked round the village and ended up in a bar, where we met a number of people who had lived, or live at present, in the American West. For many of our students who ranged in age from 18 to 73, the experiences which the BSP summer session abroad provided in Euskal-Herria provoked considerable reflection and debate about what it means to be Basque – to American Basques, as well as to the Basques of the seven provinces, in particular to those Basque men and women with whom we came into contact during the summer. In discussions inside and outside the classroom, the students also discovered that their experiences in the Basque Country were challenging expectations they had held previously about the Old World Basque culture and society of which their parents, grandparents and more distant kin had been or continue to feel themselves a part. For our Basque American students, there were aspects of Old World Basque culture that seemed familiar to them – in particular, the folk dancing (an art in which many of our younger members were accomplished), folk songs, indigenous attitudes towards eating and the sociability which accompanies it. Music and dancing, the conviviality generated by Basques who gather to eat and to drink together allowed our students to communicate with the people around them.I remember, for example, the group of bachelors from Bilbao whom we met in a small Alavese village after lunch. Having heard their music in a bar, some of our students began to dance and were soon the centre of a crowd who sang, laughed merrily, and admired the young American Basques who performed so well. There was, however, one obstacle that prevented most of our students from stepping further into the lives of the local people – like those bachelors from Bilbao – and that was language. Even in the best possible circumstances, i.e. living with a Basque-speaking family for a long period of time and using only Euskera, it takes more time than we had last summer to learn Basque. Some of our students were already fluent in Basque when they enrolled in the school; for them, the program provided an opportunity to improve their knowledge of the grammar and to employ a language they are rarely able to speak at home. For those who came to the school with no or little knowledge of Basque, the challenge of learning how to say something intelligible was great and often led to discouragement; but those who took that challenge seriously found out, with sufficient encouragement, that they were in fact able to say a few things in Euskera and that they were making themselves understood. With the help of first-hand experience and study, our students learned a lot – about the Basques, and about themselves. For my own part, I hope that each of them who wishes to do so will be able to return to Euskal-Herria and to a people to whom it is very easy to become attached – even for a non-Basque like me. |
|
|
|
|
