After a year of paron we have opened the pediment and the time has come to celebrate it properly!! ! This is how the message that the Txapa Ahotsa Assembly has disseminated through social networks and email begins. The celebration will be the closure of a long process.

On July 6, 2023, a hail and a strong wind storm caused great damage in Vitoria-Gasteiz and its surroundings, as well as on the roof of the Auzolana fronton. The storm caused several holes and tore up several whole plates. That day, and every time it rained afterwards, the water fell directly onto the court, until it got submerged. “On the day of the sucking of Pamplona we had our own sucking,” said Sergio Mediavilla, member of the assembly of Voz Veneer. But at first it was not humor, anguish prevailed, as the need to change the roof completely by analyzing the extent of the damage, and it raised the question of whether there was a capacity to cope with the workload and the money that this would require. The Auzolana fronton, which was occupied and opened in 2008, has remained closed for the first time in sixteen years. However, at the end of the day, after a more detailed analysis and a number of views, it was found that a large, but not complete, arrangement was needed. The most important is the elimination of the many damaged sheets and the implementation of new ones. In any case, the work was complicated.

Repair of the Auzolan pediment

Mediavilla stresses the way to deal with repairs: they called the users and friends of space to an open assembly and organized the following steps among the attendees. First, to analyze the damage and to assess the possible forms of reparation. Then, get the pasta to meet the expenses: “We sold solidary tickets, we took clothes, and in summer some agents have offered us to make shifts in their txosnas to give us the money they had brought us out.” Construction of the roof began before the summer, according to the same sources. The most technical work has been inexorably in the hands of a few people, but the realization of others was in the hands of the whole world and many people have participated in one way or another: neighbors, neighbors and neighbors who used the pediment in previous years and members of the different agents... On June 27, Zaharraz Harro was called auzolan! Inside the popular parties. Once the roof was covered, the field of the court was finally fixed and painted. At the end of the news you can see several photos of the repair work.

Although the official re-opening will take place on Saturday, Fronton Auzolana has regained its vitality from September of this year. “He’s up and the people are very happy,” says Mediavilla. Since its birth in 2008, the space has been organized mainly through general assemblies that are held every three months. There, schedules and basic cleaning are distributed and organized. The first took place on 12 September, after almost a year and a half of work. But in addition to the ball games, Auzolan has hosted many other activities in the last sixteen years, such as popular meals, events, conferences, dances or essays of musical groups, among others. They will also gradually recover.

Members of the Txapa Ahotsa Assembly are pleased. After a year, the fronton is back in operation, after the storm and after seeing the continuity of the project jeopardized for a while. But it's not just for that. Mediavilla stressed that the Auzolan has been revitalized “thanks to the participation of the neighborhood’s friends and the pediment”, “we have felt that it is an important space for the city, but above all for the neighborhood”. We have also had a final cause for rejoicing. Txapa Ahotsa’s assembly, in charge of space management, is stronger than in the time of the Hailstorm of 2023: “In this process we have gathered together new people, we are strengthened and eager to look to the future.”

19 October, Celebration Day

Mediavilla has anticipated that the activities will start early Saturday morning at the Auzolana fronton: In the first place, the children of the socio-community project of the Casco Viejo de Vitoria-Gasteiz, after the party of elders, the bertsos and the act will give continuity to the program, and after the marianita there will be a popular meal that will unite the “Inauguration 2.0” of Auzolana with the traditional Food of Thanks of Zahaz Harro. From there, available to each. For food you must register in advance at the fronton Auzolana before October 15.