Alfonso Etxegarai (Plentzia, Bizkaia, 1958) metaphorically decorated the situation imposed on his life: the Basque militant was expelled by France in 1985 as far as possible from his country. Spain was kidnapped and tortured first in Ecuador, and then abandoned in Sao Tom and Prince (Gulf of Guinea, Africa). He has linked other elements to the deportation label, as it was completely based on the landscape of his social, political and labor life. So far. And that is that, apart from years of struggle, the context has returned the keys to the house. Although the lock has oxidized, it has begun to grease. In the heat of the fireplace he writes in his third book the journey of the end of the adventure. As they did in Sagar, Josu Martinez and Txaber Larreategi continue with the documentary Etxerako bidean: Caminho longe. As in the pelagic networks, your colleague Kristiane Etxaluze has also been grieved.

What title would you give to the adventure you've lived?

The Hilda dago poetry of Sarrionandia? Remembering, I could pass it on to the lights and shadows of the adventurer and the peasant. I see myself among what would never come out of Euskal Herria by his own will and what he learned by the force of traveling and surviving the shipwrecks.

What does a Basque need to obtain the title of deportation?

It has to be resilient, warrior and gone through so many wars, and win in lottery: by force and push to travel on an unknown distant destination, which matches your personality. Anyone who engages and fights for his people, rejecting the joke, can get the title at concrete moments in history anywhere in the world.

After so many years, what made your return home possible?

We have been searching for the right conditions for deportation to take place for years. It's come. Since ETA has decided to end its existence, thanks to the attitude of the peace-keepers, the decision of the French Government to cancel my expulsion has come and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain has confirmed to me the result of the passport. I could say that in some peoples of America and Africa, conditions have been created to put an end to the deportation of the seven or nine Basque militants, which affect governments and other participants in this story.

Can this be true for other cases?

I think it serves above all to demonstrate that deportation can be ended. It has been one of the objectives of many people who have mobilised a great deal, especially since the Biarritz declaration in 2013.

The beginning and the end are rough, including war.

There may be more than one starting point and destination at all times. The question is this: because it is the starting point. If outside the deportation, mine would be a quote from Baiona with the PAF [French Border and Air Police], in the operation organized by the police within the measure agreed by the governments of France and Spain. I had no appointments with the FAP, but she had received me, without warning. If the beginning was a disaster, the end has been very hard, with our round back. In general, it is clear that everyone is fighting for a happy ending. But we're still in the first steps of that happy ending. In this adventure of deportation, of exile, of prisons, and as in the same war of 58, comes a happy ending in which dreams come true, at least in some cases. For example, we Basques are the antiheroes who always come to the happy end.

The day you arrived in Baiona, with what you agreed 35 years ago, it happened to you on the same site. Did you find the chandelier overflowing with spiders?

I don't know what the spider is with the web. The image is pretty. I found her richer. We hugged ourselves so much, that I felt in men a sweetness that seemed impossible. And the quote of 34 years ago was celebrated, it's true, on the same street, by a cosmic chance. Unexplained things.

Back to Sara is the title of the book he dedicated in 1794 in tribute to the 4,000 Basques exiled by Sara's France. Did you come back to Sara?

I'm on the road, at a stage of this path. I say to people: "I'm at home," but going back to Sara means meeting more places, people, geography and situations that you're still dreaming of.

What life do you have after the jump?

Right now, I'm rediscovering the nature of Euskal Herria. I was surprised by a play I saw in Luhuso: Blue horse. I did not imagine going so far in this area, I suspected that I had advanced a lot as a people. I deal with administrative issues and I am dealing with the work of the farmhouse, in leisure time, I start new relations with people from different areas. The leap I've made is a cosmic leap, like the one I've made from one planet to another, although it's only been from the African continent to the European.

What did you find here with? With what political situation?

I've found people who have been waiting for me for decades: relatives, companions -- some of whom I barely know. I've met with a high level of developmentalism, but I've also found very conscious people who are willing to change their own thing to get life out of the lane. As far as I am concerned, I have administrative and economic problems to resolve. From a political point of view, I see a new situation with the struggle in Catalonia, but also a capacity for international expansion. I believe that many political problems have an international space to seek solutions; in a more republican environment. A space must be found to end journalism and its international lobbies.

What scenery have you found here? What is the difference between the ‘civil society’ and the ‘people’ that you separate in the book of war of 58?

The one who has returned is a former soldier, as a friend whom I saw again said. The peasant has come back. And everything gets new to me: the keys I've carried don't serve to open the current doors. I thought something like that would happen to me. Everything makes me new and I, aged in the midst of all that, as someone who has to learn to live. Sara's been changed by the lock, and I, old man, need new keys to finding a place on the farm and in the village.

In Back to Sara you find yourself as a “singular bird,” but you found yourself fully integrated. Moreover, you had immersed yourself in the political life of the island.

Yes, my friend and I have become a site in Saotometan society. I had immersed myself in the economic, social and political life of the place. Thanks to my knowledge and relationships, I made a good interpretation of the facts, in this sense I had a role. If I was a rare bird, my character, open-minded and engaged, had made me an indefatigable worker.

It was the laborer of Lemoniz who found him to be Lord of Sao Tome and Principe.

The grace of the misunderstandings led me to be a patrão of some companies, but not the Lord of São Tomé and Príncipe. What happened was that a Portuguese friend, the real owner of those companies, offered me the possibility of having the right hand, and I accepted it. As I lived in Lisbon, I was left with business management. For the Saotometans it was O patrão by misunderstandings, and this image forced me to answer many questions.

You've left Sao Tome as a deportee, but not as a person. Why aren't you going to unadapt?

I continue to communicate with those present every day and to inform myself of developments. There are real friends that make me feel there, and most of all I have a sentimental relationship with a boy. I think I'm going to have to come back at a certain point, and I could do it, but what's obvious, no more as a deportee.

What have been the auxiliary characters of the adventure?

I have a very long list. Internationalist Cuban doctors, who saved my life, I say. Solidarity organization with the Basque Country. Basque Members, lawyers. Fighting members. Young people from my village, Betti… This list does not include the most important friend, Kristiane [Etxaluze], because he in himself is part of the adventure, but he has been the main support of my deportation: a classmate of struggle, dreams and love.

Tell me the trip to Libreville.

I was twice in Libreville, the first time to make a biometric passport, and the second time on the scale I had to do on the road to Paris. The most important thing about the first time is that I met there with a Basque from Iparralde, who is very human and who did everything possible to help me. I owe him eternal recognition and friendship: it is one of the great Basques in the world, we are not aware of them!

And you bought Kristian a tranquilizer, I beg you.

I offered him a Borsalino and told him to put it all the way. Kristian counts: “He actually looked at this cap for him, because he liked it. It seemed stupid to me to spend EUR 25 on this. The next day he took me to the store to hide it. I loved it because it was made of recycled paper, but it always cost me too much. He paid and gave me the condition: for me to put it on during the whole trip, to be sure that we would arrive in Baiona. He calmed my veins."

Txema [name of war], revolutionary, companion, lover and gudari – Return to Sara – retreated?

I could say that Alfonso was forced to come back and Txema left. I took the name of a countryman, a good guy, and I thought he might be funny.

The way you withdraw from the war is disturbing: you see it as a tragedy in the absence of debate about the reasons. In the second book, you say that even if the war is over, the fight continues. It poses a dilemma between the legal and the illegal.

No, I'm not so worried about the shape anymore. On the contrary, I always have the tragedy in my head and the ideas of the need to tell the people everything we can. I am now worried about the obstinacy of the Spaniards, of a large part of the Spaniards, and of the rulers who do not realize that we have to look for outlets. I was complaining because his war and his tragedy are dragging on to keep the status quo standing, but they will necessarily have to change, as many other things will have to change, such as the idea we have of advancement and others. That is why I say that the struggle continues… and that we will need it in the years following the resolution of the dilemma between the legal and the illegal. As we are seeing in Catalonia right now.

How do you see the situation of the deportees and prisoners?

All situations related to the effect of political violence - prisoners, deportees, deportees, exiles - should be seen from another perspective that excludes any attitude of revenge and in an authentic and pedagogical way, and taking into account that this idea has always spread: that you can talk about everything without violence, and that you can seek solutions, this idea should be true, and not merely propaganda.