Your name is among the old singers. We must mention Manex Pagola and Zazpiribai for their spectacularity... It's not a
lie that if I met Manex [Pagola] and other friend singers, and when Zazpiribai was set up, I started on that path. Manex wanted him to participate fully in the songs. Then a lot of things arrived. For example, when the poster was made, my choice was by the name of Patxika. You have an etsenplu ttipi, if you like, but that's where my name has changed and more has come. But it was Manex's work. When we were in a group on the mountain, we were always singing, and Manex told me I had a nice voice. He said that, and I didn't believe... So I didn't know, but over the years I've realized that Manex wanted to be a woman in the group.

So could you give yourself back?
Yes, Lurdes Iriondo, but it was the other part. On the other hand, Maite Idirin and Estitxu were overtime. You couldn't give anything else here, singing a lot of people. Since then many have arrived and their votes and well-worked instruments have matured. I didn't feel like a singer. I've also cried, because there are songs that need to be repeated over and over again. But now I am satisfied with all of them.

You tell us that you were not a singer, but you also made a record in 1977, on your behalf: I'm a mountaineer and... These
are the songs I sang on the album of Zazpiribain and Ortziken, with the help of the grupo.No there was no disc, nor did it rotate at that time. On the contrary, Ortziken took a record before the group ended in 1976. However, I didn’t get to see Ortziki’s end, because I was pregnant: our third son, Maialen, was born the same month of Ortzik’s completion in October 1976.

No Dok Amairu accompanied some of the above spectacular… Yes, and I’ve met
Xabier Lete, Lurdes Iriondo, Benito Lertxundi, Mikel Laboa, Joxean Artze, Jose Angel Irigarai… We felt great among all, there and here. For example, when we made seven rivers, we were for the first time, in a concert, from beginning to end, all the singers there, on top of the table. And the game of lights back then was also terrible. Today, for example, it's not a problem, but it already existed at that time. Zazpiribay was a resounding success. It happened in many places. The first, in Donibane Garazi, but in the period that took place in Baiona, the room was filled with 900 people, and another 300 remained out! That day we promised to return to the same Bayona. Two or three months later, we gave it at the end of June ... And 600 tickets to the Baiona Theatre! Amazingly amazing! So many times they had seen that spectacular in the whole environment, but people want to see it again!

In Baiona you had spoken a lot, although you were born in the interior… Yes, in
Aldude… In my time, there were about 800 people in the village. There are now 300. In their day, people have departed from Fite Alduque, one to America and the other to the city, because it means Bayona. Then in Aldude there were no other crops, some farmhouses there and here. Now it's changed, if it's movement. Pierre Oteiza is a ram who has worked a lot for many years, and today, for example, is the Belaun cooperative. There they have gathered eight villages, which arrange and sell their products: steak, butcher, gas, duck, bell pepper... and the donkeys and the apples! There they are as well: Gasnero de Urepele and Alduce. Without forgetting the plants of Banka, Aldude and Urepele. On the other hand, the AIBA partnership has been set up, which means: Ibarra de Alduque Beti Aurrera. There are the residents of Banka, Aldude and Urepele, who are proud to live in the Aldue valley and who want the valley to live. In my time it didn't exist ...

That’s why you also migrated to Bayona…
Yes. I studied at local school until I was fourteen years old. Then, because I didn't want to go to study outside and out of the house, I studied in the same Aldude, with sero, in cocia and sewing, and so on. I was there until I was 18, and then I came to Baiona. Alone. I looked for a job. It was a work exile. I joined the social work, as a family assistant. That was a great opening in my life.

Opening? What do you mean?
Aldude was a ttip town. I grew up in the family, in the village, in the midst of nature… It occurs to me that a child lived as he lives in the womb of his mother, vulgarly protected, saved, as the cake is molded: very soft, well raised… I remember, for example, that I always had to have said “thank you!”, and always, “wolf!” and even my image for the rest of life is obvious. We were drowned, because in our family there was nothing else: I had two sera tanttas, a wolf the bishop, and three Kusi were priests and seroras. Perhaps in most of the houses there were priests and seroras. Relations and churches were drowned, I have no other word. And fear. Iduri said that everyone in Aldud was like this. That was it.

And he comes to Baiona and ...
I trained here on my work… First I have seen misery in families. That has been terrible. I have learned a lot about the gospel that was read to us in Aldude. I have seen it in practice. For you to have an idea, for example: I didn’t understand what we were called in the gospel… The workers went to work in the vineyard, some who worked eight hours, others went to the last hour, and they received the same pay as the others. I did not understand that in Aldude, but I learned of going to Baiona and working in families.

He says that in social work in Baiona, with her families, she saw misery.
Yes, terrible misery. As it is today, on the other hand. Exactly the same. And with misery, I saw sickness and disability. Pregnant woman at home. Surely that family lives badly with the last-minute pay... lives badly on my wife and children! And then I learned the gospel, because that woman deserved the same pay of others. For example.

You were very well cared for by fleeing from the world of Alduque to Baiona.
I had to do what I had to do, I had to fix it, and I had a living place. And for example, I remember it was with some friends in Baiona, and one of them started everything for the cure and the serora. I stayed -- surprise! Iduri told me that my otto and ttantta were talking against them. It wasn’t like that at all, but there I realized there was something…

Aldude was the town of Euskera, French place of Baiona.
But that has not been the case at all! We lived between the gendarme and the guard of Aldud. They, of course, did not know Euskera, not even their children, and we were with them in school, and on the fringes of school we also played with them. Then you realize what it was. We stayed French! For a moment, when I came to live in Baiona, the Basque was almost lost! And I still remember my parents, who didn't know French quite well. When I walked through the streets of the city and listened to the Basque, I was given the opportunity. Euskera was a language of Mount Zoco. If I have a sister, and still today, I speak French. A year ago, I talked to my husband, or in French. I am in French and he is always in Basque! I had Euskera, but lost, forgotten.

Before he talked to us about friends who talked about priests and seros, but he also did others. I mean, they put you on the track of the song… How did that come?
The first few years in Baiona, every weekend he went to Alduque. The Daniel Landart Theatre was being renovated in Baiona and the group held several performances in Aldude. I met those who made theater in Aldude, and then, when I headed to Baiona, here too there was always theater, and there was mountain! And I met Manex Pagola, Martxelin Arbelbide, Gexan [Alfaro], Beñat Sarasola… There was movement. We started doing trips to the mountain, because here it was not customary, and then we did excursions with the club Donostia. At that time, I realized the language and the nationalist world. For example, it was Artio Françoise time, I was always called like this in the village, and today I am also told by many at the time. And it is not a mistake, I already accept very well the name of Françoise.

How did he get from Françoise to Patxika?For Auditor
Zazpiribai, when I had to put my name on the afix, I signed up. For Patxi, for man, and Patxi, for woman. That is how my name has come.

When you threw the kids, you commit to working for the ikastola. In 2016 he received the Argizaiola Award for his ant work for many years. From the beginning we put the children in the ikastola, and there was
a lot to do, helping in the ikastola, working in the camp… We gave it all in the ‘Manex Goihenetxe tolan’. There is talk of ‘sessions!’, but they are sessions, on the one hand, and post-plenary meetings, on the other, because it is also meant to do the work that is taken in the sessions, because something must always be done. We weren't a lot of people, but what was there believed well in the project. With the background, for example, we lost a lot of children, because the kids feared that their children wouldn't learn their language or didn't know how they were going to be implanted in society, or because they had doubts. Then, little by little, the mockingbirds saw that the kids were working well, and that fear is no more. Today the tests are there. But it's been hard. We had to believe it! When I had the Argizaiola Prize, I was first surprised and I didn’t want to accept it… and I thought it well and I dedicated it to all those who are working like a chinaurría in the North, and who are going to do it. On the other hand, I did not want to stay at home and therefore is always in the Manex Goihenetxe Culture House of Anglet.

He has lived the man out and his wife in the time when he was his casa.Esto has been clearly
so, and there he has also had to work. I, in the first place, had to fight for a place in society, because at the time society did not give room to my wife. Now it is my wife who can take the place, but at the time it was not. In the affairs of the people the wives did not have words, in those of the house yes, and in those of the dwellings, like the men who were working. Our father was engaged in the sale and purchase of merchant cattle. He had a tiny ttipi, and there he donated his animals, especially sheep. There was a vengeance and in summer we had to go to grass. We were going men and women, we were working, we were eating, and then the men were going to nap, and we, the wives, had to pick up the boats and get the afternoon snack. And once our jobs were finished, the men were in the hospital, and the women had to go with them to get back to work with them. That's an example. A lot of that! Kill Xerri, everybody working and this and that. Then there was a great meal, there was a nice party, and the men started singing, or in letters, and the wives were at hand making mockery and cushion. It was a smell! Being there, it was as if it were normal, but then he realizes that it wasn't normal.

Is that also the case now?
No, things are different now, but there is always some struggle. For example, I have not been involved in the struggle of my wife or in feminism, but at the same time I know that I have fought inside. I have not been in the meetings, but there have been concentrations – here, one year, a man has killed his wife and the two children – we have been in the meetings. Everyone has to make their own way. I’m talking about those of… Then I’m clear, however, that the team and teamwork are necessary.

* * * * * * * * * * *

“I don’t know
how to create songs, I don’t know. Some say you have to feel like putting something… Or maybe you have to be the daughter of a singer, because our father always sang, sang songs. But surprisingly, I knew the whole Xalbador book enthusiastically. It's a way to errate. I want to say that in Xalbador my father knew many songs, and that the simple song kept in memory the songs of twenty, twenty-two coplas.”

FE
“Now I can’t support more churches. There are no ugly things left in the Church and around the Church. But if I have faith, linking more to the gospel and to the values of the gospel. Faith gives an objective in life, and the relationship was, in the past, to give an objective to life. But at the time, the cure and the serora were as they wanted, they took us as they wanted, through the paths they wanted.”

Last word

MAILUX
“My husband has been in jail for fourteen months and Mailux came with all the fans to say goodbye. He lives five kilometers from here. She felt, greeted me and left. He came every day to say goodbye to him. In the five nerves of my hand, I can tell the days when I didn't come. If I had a moment, I would grab a tisana, and on the other hand, she would get fired and leave. Mailux Dupérou Çaldumbide. I will never forget it.”