In the corner of the house, Xan Aire has silently found the sentinels that keep the terrible stories. He realizes that his neighbours, who have been old, have been young at some time. He has kept the voices and sounds of these urepelites, “The Basque may not miss, but his way of speaking, his expressions...”. Air says it's the effect of the change of civilization, the leap from orality to writing.

The change of life in Urepel (Nafarroa Beherea) has been what surprised Aire the most. He says that they wanted us to believe that we live better, but he believes that we have been condemned to misfortune. The following phrases of the elderly have influenced this reflection: “Today’s misery is money”; “Before we had time, now we have also lost it”; “We didn’t have money, but we didn’t know hunger”; “I was in America looking for money and came back with misery”; “It was the car that first struck Urepele and television.” Most of the interviewees are farmers, without any kind of knowledge, and Aire believes that it is a message that must be disseminated beyond microphones. “We should talk more to the old people, hear what they have to say. They didn't have money, they didn't have television, but they had time. It wasn’t the same spirit, they were happy.”

Also in the book

Air referred to the time of war, to exchanges with the Nazis, to the change of life and values, to the hope of a trip to America, to the solitude and misery that they experienced there.

Faced with the need to publicize all these stories, Aire decided to write the book “because the book has the sweetness that the video does not have.”

The events of the Second World War have been the excuse for initiating dialogue often. Thus, apart from keeping the language of each of the rapporteurs, it has been possible to collect fragments of history. Anyone who did not want to talk about the war or did not remember anything has been asked about the work.

Basque Country, Urepele hustu

Although he does not know what the relationship is, and although he cannot prove any theory, the problem is that the people have evicted themselves from the people as the Basque has gone: “If you don’t have attachment to the Basque, you don’t have attachment to a people like Urepele.” Moreover, he confirms that his generation, born in 1984, is the last one that fully understands the Basque, “I have not spoken to him, but I have understood him”. The elderly people interviewed felt Euskaldunes, but with the loss of language, the French feeling is increasing.

Aire argues that what is happening around him is the result of many elements that have left a complex reality. On the one hand, he thinks that this is the succession of a black past narrated by the interviewees. In the school the Basque was forbidden. Mocking, embarrassment and others left a profound mark on people’s memories, to the point of turning their backs on their own language. “The Basque language they learned in school was bad, which has caused the transmission of the house to be lost.” On the other hand, the demand for modernity has seriously affected the people of Baja Navarra, opening a wide wound: “In the name of modernity you can no longer speak in Basque or live in a small town. That is the new spirit.” That is what the interviewees have told him, “they have not known hunger, but they have lost their lives forever, Urepel has lost identity, we have lost identity with the Basque Country”.

They didn't know French

“Ixterbegi is not like a poor people in France. At school, I've been forbidden to do the ceremony and then we've been forced to live like you. They have acquired our personality, but we too have lost it. We have not passed on the accession of the people. We've let it fly along with language. No roots, will a thick tree unfold? Our people have been buried by ourselves, on the outside and around.” The former is a fragment of the social satire Petrola Ixterbegin, written by Xan Aire. “I wanted to show Urepele how it is, to denounce this surreal policy, to put people in front of the mirror and show what we are doing so that we finally wake up.” Despite the criticisms he has received, he has admitted that he has not written as revenge or to fight anyone, but to denounce the reality of the country.

Today, even if not as you like, you have hope and desire to work: “The old ones gave me strength, they were much worse than us, and they are here.” A woman of the interviewees confessed to her that if she were young she would fight against the social situation, against this absurd reality; under these embodied bodies, young spirits often hide. Yet they see the future very black, because they don't see people anymore, because they don't talk to people on the street. This was very important to them. “Many have had to jump directly from the Middle Ages to modernity.” Among the interviewees there are people who do not know French or who know it very little, while today's young people do not understand Basque.

According to Xan Aire, there is currently a need to create places and tools to be able to speak together in Basque. He is a graduate in French and Basque Philology and coordinator of the Euskaraz bizi project, created by SEASKA and AEK. Think a little bit. “Today people don’t cross the street, but if they demonstrated a few years ago how the relationship between neighbors was, how important the link was,” he believes it would open the doors to a more prosperous reality.

In the opinion of the Urepel philologist, ignorance is often the basis of many evils, and the knowledge and knowledge denied; both for the Basque and for the life that has touched us to live.