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Besides the regular Basque club activities in General Villegas to spread the Basque culture in their club as well as part of a project in a rural school in the town of Elordi, club members also participated last week in a national walk with the slogan, “Not one less,” against gender violence.  The Villegasko Euskaldunak was present at the demonstration with posters in Basque and Spanish. 

Gral. Villegas, Argentina. With the slogan “Not one Less,” there was a huge march held on June 3, against gender violence and to denounce female homicides that are occurring at a rate of one every thirty hours in the country.  Even if the largest demonstration was held in Buenos Aires, there were also smaller events held across the country with demonstrations in the main plazas in every city. 

The city of Gral. Villegas was no exception with the same slogan as Buenos Aires, hundreds took to the streets to demonstrate.  As many other local institutions, the Villegasko Euskaldunak Basque club also invited their members to join in and was part of the crowd with messages in Basque and Spanish.

As the Basque teacher, Nieves Castillo Alzuri, told EuskalKultura.com, “the march was huge, i have never seen that many people in a demonstration before; it was very moving.  And we want to especially thank Marcela Calderon, author of the drawing that was on our posters, for letting us use it.”

Euskera and Basque culture in Elordi

In the meantime, the activities that take place every week at the Basque club continue, getting stronger all the time.  Among these, the workshop on Basque language and culture taught by Nieves Castillo along with Maria Zaton at the rural school in Elordi, part of Gral. Villegas.

“We go every Wednesday morning.  There are 23 students at the school and we work with them on activities related to the Basque culture and languages.  We teach dances, words and games, and in the future we may even teach some easy recipes.  The locality, which is now barely populated, used to be an important center of Basque immigration and is linked to the history of several families who are now club members and who now live in Villegas.  The idea is to work on the culture from the roots for the Basque population as well as for local history. It is an experience that we recently began and we feel like it is a great experience,” Castillo told EuskalKultura.com.

Upcoming Activities

Activities are being carried out one after the other at Basque clubs but for this the Villegasko Euskaldunak is anticipating a “complete” program for the upcoming weekends.  Next Saturday, the club cooks, Diego Tellechea and Maria Zaton will teach a classic cooking class with tasting to following.  The following weekend, the club will be represented at the Day of the Flag in collaboration with the CeAT (Early Childhood Center) where the group will put together a sporting event.

Finally on the 21st the club will organize the sale of “callos a la vizcaina,” and on the 26th it will begin to close the month’s program with a member dinner.