You are an educator by profession. What exactly does it do?
In the last four years, my duty is to promote educational activities between culture and age. Now I am especially immersed in sexual and drug prevention programs, both in families and in educational centers. In addition, I work as a socio-cultural animator of Steribar, which gives me the opportunity to be with a lot of people.

You have the ability to connect
with people... Yes, they say. And the truth is, the whole valley knows me. In Sanfermin, for example, I am often screamed on the street “IS, Steribar!”. They don't know my name or who I am, but they know I'm there.

Why did you choose this profession?
Because I love it. Helping is a need I feel inside. From a young age he entered the Basque service, the Ludoteca… in all the places where he could, to organize things. I'm drawn to everything that's communal. People like me. Walking down the street, I've seen someone sitting and I don't know why, but I can stand by and chat with him for hours. I do the same with a person living on the street as I do with older people. I like to hear their stories.

And where does love for Africa come from?
When I saw something about Africa from a young age, I felt a remorse inside of me. Black people, young children… A few years ago I stopped smoking and started saving money that I didn’t spend on tobacco for travel. Suddenly, my ex-boyfriend and I saw on the internet a cheap plane ticket for Dakar and at that time we took it. Before we left, we contacted a school there. We told them we wanted to take some material to the school and if it was possible to find a place to sleep. The truth is that the proposal was very welcome and that we were treated very well. When I got there, the air inhalation when I opened the airplane door was horrifying. I laughed all day. We traveled about twenty days in Senegal.

I met three very majestic Basque girls in a mother's house in the Cassamance region, in the south of the country. They're nurses, and every year they're going to work three months. With them I met this wonderful region. It's very beautiful and rich because nature is very prosperous. It rains if they are rice, orchards, fish and animals. It's very appealing, but I think my work is in poor places, so I'm only ever visiting Cassamank.

Did you find what you thought?
I didn't know exactly what I would find. Senegal has many regions and some are very poor, but there is no permanent state of war, as in Ethiopia or Somalia. Senegal, in itself, is very happy. They call him the village of Teranga, that is, the host or welcome village. And it's true, it's amazing how they get you everywhere. But at the same time, it's very sad and hard to see how many white people behave. They're called tubap, and everybody asks them something: candy, Bic -- always begging. On the first trip I went wrong. We took some pens to get them delivered to people, and we took them out one day to offer them to some kids. There were only two or three kids, but within a few seconds of taking the pens, we were surrounded by hundreds of kids who wanted to take everything out of their hands. I felt the physical pain and, above all, the pain in my heart. That is what we have achieved over the centuries. And unfortunately you see it many times, for example, groups of tourists take the candy out and throw it to the ground for children to catch. Sometimes I'm jaleo with whites. So you do a lot of damage to a people, because you do beggar. But many white people like that sense of power. Same as with sex. Many adult women see themselves with young people, pederastia is widespread, lots of putas houses… A 12-year-old girl does what you want for a small bottle of perfume.

I have learned to act differently. I'm not wearing anything. Not even money. I provide the necessary assistance to the person whom I have to provide, that is to say, to the school principal or to the person responsible for a place, in the form and with the appropriate guarantees. For the rest, I am nothing more than a black foot. They see me eating with them from the saucepan, sitting on the ground, showering with a pot of peas, taking water out of the well… So what will they ask me? They like my presence and they tell me: “Amaia, you are not a tubap.” When they tell me that, I feel very proud. It's exciting.

What is Europe for them?
A box of treasures. Here are a lot of Senegalese who have sent a lot of money, at least so far. It is the best thing for them to have a family member in Europe, in both economic and prestige terms. But when you get here, they prodigiously transform. They dive into our system and become mere consumers. They are often told at their feet that they live very well here, that they are friends of Messi or Ronaldinho… They are often dedicated to ambition. I love the Senegalese in Senegal.

What do you lose when you come here?
Joy, climate, food, family, religion, culture… Suddenly they lose everything. Change is terrible. There are also people who have a great interest in culture here and in the Basque country. In the Sakana there are people who speak Basque, and I fall in love with them. Its main objective is, in general, to work and earn money.

Do you have any relationship with the Senegalese here?
Yes, a lot. I'm learning the wolof with them. I approach them and ask them how they say things.

Isn't it hard for you to understand some of their customs, like polygamy?
Yes. There I live with families, in their homes, and most of the time I do it with the two or three wives of man and all his children. I talk a lot to women about these issues. I ask them what they feel in that situation, and they tell me it's better, because they have help in this way. Women have a lot of work at home: cooking, caring for children, washing them, bringing water, shopping, caring for animals, etc., and also the house is always full of people, because grandchildren come, cousins… Women are always “fatigued, fatigued”. If the man marries another woman, there will be another woman to get all the work out of the house. Sometimes there may be tension between them, but in general, it is a practical system for distributing work and covering a man's sexual needs.

And what do men do?
If they are fishermen, if not, the rest of the time is very little work. If you ask yourself, everyone tells you they're salesmen. They sell anything in the markets: clothing, fruit, spare knives, cables… They put everything on the ground and they spend the day. Here everybody sells, but my question is: Who buys? You don't see anyone buying.

Do you talk about family
planning? In Amaetxea, I talk about prevention workshops and family planning. Women have an average of six, seven or more children. In many cases, they don't know how old they are or what day they live in. They don't have a calendar. Many of them are illiterate. They don't have money to buy condoms, and also men don't like them, which is why they're rarely used. Some take pills, but hidden away, without men knowing them. There are young women who see the need to do something about this, but many do not.

What do you think about ablation?You
don't talk about that and you are suspicious if you ask. I think they basically know that this is wrong. They see how girls get full of infections, which cause terrible atrophies, how some die, how many problems they have in childbirth... It's very hard. Girls 4, 5 or 6 years old are made with a small sheet. In some places, the child is cut and left under a tree until the wound is closed. In Senegal, especially in cities, new mothers are changing things a little bit. I believe that our task is to explain what it is and what consequences it brings. Let them know all of this. That's very useful for me to use the photos. It is very difficult for women to oppose the family and the people. The pressure is enormous. You have to be a very strong and self-esteem woman to turn her around. It's very difficult.

What else do you work?
In the field of prevention we have sarmiento and skin diseases. Scabies is widespread because dirt is terrible. They have it all over their bodies, even newborns. They live surrounded by dirt, do not wash clothes very often and eat everything by hand. We want to extend the use of the spoon, it would be an important step.

You are now the coordinator of the Basque Country of the Taliban Foundation. Who are these children? They are
beggars of children living in the poorest areas of the cities of Senegal. When poor families have nothing to eat, they take the kids to a quran school and stay there, at the orders of an Arab or a teacher. These are boys and girls from the age of 4. The marabous send their children to the streets asking for rice, sugar and money. There they stay twelve hours a day and when they return to school, when they take little money or rice, they get beatings and mistreatment. In addition, they rent these children for all kinds of jobs and excesses. They are slave children. Senegal is full of Taliban. It is estimated that it is more than 50,000, more and more, because they are now reaching Mali many times in an attempt to escape. The situation is worsening. As there is a crisis here, they have felt it very much. I spent the day with them and, if I can, I walked into their schools to talk to their maraboos. We tell them and the authorities that this way of treating children is not the right way. We make them see that they have to change that reality and that whites who admire so much don't accept that kind of behavior. But that's the life you've always known. I have an intimate friend, here known in Burlada, who has been Taliban. His father told him that he was sending the Taliban to know the hardness of life. In addition, these children, in adulthood, wilt, perpetuating this vicious circle.

You are making a new campaign and in December you will start again. What are your goals on this occasion? On this trip we have
three projects: in a small town we have built a new house of mothers and now we will bring materials and medicines to supply us. In addition, the families of the Roncal school have given us 1,000 euros to fix the roof of the school of a small town. And the third goal is to bring clothing, school supplies and some things for their places of residence to Taliban children. We need money, as the transfer of each container costs EUR 3,000. I'm very happy because with me there are going to be two 78-year-old women, Ilurdotz and Zubiri. In the spring I want to make another trip, to bring more things, and for that two young people have already been encouraged to come with me.

What would you bring from Senegal?
Proximity to the public. Here we live bitter, bitter. There everything is “pa gra” (nothing happens, everything can be fixed). That solidarity is not here. I live here alone, and I close the door with a key. They don't close the houses there. You can go into an unknown house and spend all day there, use the toilet, lie in a bed, drink the tea with them… And the smile, the joy, of course. Another thing I really like is that they're never talking bad about others. That's so badly seen. I, the truth, I learn a lot from them and many times here I feel a strange, strange person. They accuse me of wanting to be always happy, as if it were a bad thing. I'm weird and I'm proud.