The Hiztunpolisa by Jon Sarasua is a very juicy book, which can be read calmly. If we were runners, Sarasua's would be a marathon with the risk that this entails: if we started fast, there's a lot of risk of drowning. It is therefore better that we go slowly, reading the texts calmly and breathing often, because the breaks will come very well to take advantage of interesting reflections.

One of the ideas underlined by my number is related to the Basque ministry. The writer has gathered around the table with the family of Lapurdi, has started singing and has realized the journey of the song by the Basque Country, as in Aretxabaleta Itsasun is equally sung, for example, “If God the Father had made me the key of heaven…”.

The journey, of course, is very old, without Basque school or radio, with word to mouth and town to town. Without forgetting the immense work of Aita Donostia, Azkue and others, of course, which has also been fundamental in the melodies of after the meal, nuances, uniting the Basques. “Sitting at the table and sharing songs is great,” says the author. That is culture, somatized to the bones.”

However, in the following lines comes the melody that obscures the mood. There you have it, in the words of Sarasua: “I have doubts in the generation of our children, if within twenty years any sailor and any atxabaltarra meet at a table, they will be able to share that pleasure. Our national ikastolas system may not achieve what those unknown cultural circuits of the past had achieved.”

According to the author, the songwriter can benefit greatly in school if he is correctly introduced into the curriculum by age. The other day I remembered Sarasua’s proposal, when in our choir we were working Adizan Gabriela: a beautiful melody, a good mirror of society of yesteryear, a wonderful and delicious Basque. And how many of those could be an incomparable treasure for the school!

So, with Sarasua. What happens is that the proposal does not hide a kind of despair: that the school should also be responsible for publicizing the basket, since the family does not guarantee the transmission. What about teachers? Just ask our kids about their list of hobbies and pleasures to realize the scale of the challenge.