We got started around Christmas, we still didn't know what had been done in the Artea Carnivals in the previous seasons and, just in case, we thought we were starting from scratch. We invited Oier Araolaza and offered us a magnificent explanation of the winter holidays, we filled the room of the House of Culture, which pleased us and which awakened in us the desire to move forward.

We started organizing and there came a beautiful testimony, that of Luis Mari Amundarain Uriarte, gathered by his nephew Maider: “Tuesday was half a party, in the morning there was a festival of footprints. The jente wore clothes of the old people of the house, of old clothes, and of stripes, of reptiles, of sheep narrated, of retracting goats… The costume was set to what were called lies.” Not only has this pleased us, it has served us to pull the rope off and since then we have collected several testimonies.

We started a small group, but it was nice to see how the initiative has been gaining strength and growing gradually. Everyone has made their contribution, one with skins, one with stripes, horns. Ask my friend’s bags, the musician willing to play the alboka, the artist willing to make his head… That’s what’s nice, recovering the Kokomarros among all.

As the day approached, more and more people started coming together and saying it would come, so we decided to ask for permission, and we did it on two lines from school to the plaza.

We had an appointment at the village school to dress us up and start the kalejira. It is not easy to describe the environment that was created there: while the musicians played and the others dressed, a special energy was created, it can be said that we acquired a group character, although before we were little made together. In total we gathered around 50 people, considering that we were only those from Artea and that in our village we are less than 800 inhabitants, it is not an easy amount.

The pasacalles was very nice, we made a couple of dances in the plaza and to finish we burned the doll we called “Kuberue” in the campa of Infante after reading the sentence. This year, we were clear about what the one we were going to burn, the coronavirus, was going to represent. Even though we know that this will not end at once, let us see if we can get away with it temporarily, following the tradition of our ancestors. We believe that people have done “something” that they needed and that the ritual has served to unite members of the community.

We know that many peoples have not been able to do that this year, but ours is a small people for good and for evil, and we have not wanted to miss the opportunity to regain the Kokomarros, even at this crazy time. The following year, people have gone home with the hope and desire to do better, just listen to the bells of ten in the evening, with a smile in their mouths and a joy in their hearts. And today, it's no small thing. What else can we ask for this winter?