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For the second year in a row, Basque teacher, Izaskun Kortazar is visiting Brazil where she has spent several days giving talks on Basque culture at Basque club across the country. Kortazar is originally from Sondika, Bizkaia but she has lived in Boise, Idaho for a dozen years.  There, she teaches at BSU.  Kortazar has visited the Eusko Alkartasuna Basque Club in Sao Paulo and over the coming days will give talks in Porto Alegre and Pelotas, before passing to Uruguay (Montevideo and Trinidad).

Sao Paulo, Brazil.   The Eusko Alkartasuna Basque Club in Sao Paulo is celebrating this year its 57th anniversary and it recently hosted a week of talks on Basque culture.  Activities began on Sunday, October 23^rd with the screening of the documentary, The Cycle of Life, about the traditional life of Basque sheepherders.  Afterwards, Dolores Martin, club member presented her future research project about the beginnings of the Basque Diaspora in Brazil.

The second talk was by Izaskun Kortazar, a native from Bilbao, but who has lived for several years in Boise, Idaho.  Kortazar, gave a talk about Basque rural games and sports.  The audience had the opportunity to try some of them like lokotxak, txingak and soka-tira.  After the exercise there was a small snack to recover their strength, and then geography professor, Diego Moreira, from the genealogy site: www.geni.com, made a presentation about Basque-Brazilian genealogy.  The day concluded with another talk by Kortazar, this time about Basque mythology.

On October 25, Kortazar, gave another presentation about Basque rural sports at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), for students in physical education and sports.  Some 30 people attended and they also had the same opportunity to try some of the different sports.  The students had some previous knowledge about the Basques and showed great interest in Basque culture.

Porto Alegre and Pelotas

The conference tour continues through Brazil with new presentations at the Rio Grande do Sul Basque Club.  This Saturday, October 29, Kortazar will be in Porto Alegre, where she will give her talks on Basque rural sports and Basque mythology.

On Monday, October 31, Kortazar will visit Pelotas, where she will once again give her talks at the local library.  All of the talks will be in Portuguese, and they are all open to the public. Admission is free to anyone interested in learning more about the Basque culture.