He was born in Bidania in 1947. How do you remember your childhood and youth?
Poverty. I see a lot of poverty. And no choice. Now children are born, and you know they're going to school, to learn more, something that wasn't there at the time. We were like many brothers…

How much?
13. We always had to work, we cared for smaller children, we brought wood… things like that.

What was your relative?
Third. And for me, it was wonderful to take care of my brothers. Walking with them on Saturdays and holidays seemed the most beautiful. They looked so elegant, I liked them so much… One on the back, on the other two hands, and the other in front. I've spent my whole life as a nanny.

Didn't you attend school?
One year. We were going to Mojata. The nuns weren't graduated, and then we couldn't get certificates. They told us they were going to give us private classes and we got together a group of 14 or so, and every day we went to school. So I began to learn, to see and to rejoice in wisdom.

Shortly afterwards, San Sebastian was served.
My father came to the fair to Tolosa, and when he came from the fair he brought me a wallet and said to me, "Look, girl, this wallet, in this house there was a lot of work, there was work for you, but here you can't be, anyone who has to go has to look for life. Hold this wallet and keep it always full." My mother searched for the girl's place in San Sebastian and there I was.

I serve, brought the inmate to Pamplona my older sister, my second brother died in accident at the age of seventeen, and I stayed in second place, the brothers behind were friars to Arantzazu... You had to go and look for the future.

How long was it useful?
About three years.

How about that?
Well, she attends... She comes apart, in uniform, at noon there... I cried at night. Everyone at the party, Bidania what near San Sebastian, and I have no freedom to go there.

And then?
My sister came from Pamplona de bachiller and worked in San Sebastian in a trade, and my mother saw one maid and another in the trade… She did a job in a pond on Garibai Street. But I didn't know how to draw any accounts, they figured out, and they put a teacher on me to learn. At twelve, a young lady came every day, we went up to the housewife's floor, and I left two very fine weeks. So I started going to downtown Nazareth to study general culture.

You wanted to learn.
I wanted to know. Then I left the pond and went to work somewhere else, but I wasn't so comfortable. Then I entered the old politics, there I also committed, and then the adventures, our father also knew…

He was Franco and had concerns.
Yes. Being Basque, we were not Spanish. We were very religious in our family, at least I did, and I remember that the day of Santiago I managed not to attend the Mass because I was not Spanish and that was a Spanish holiday. I remember as a personal rebellion.

He tells me he got into politics.
I learned a lot, like using the multigraph. Take out photocopies. Then it served me in Venezuela, because nobody used it and they were regulated by people. I knew how to put it with the stencil, throw the ink… It was worth it.

You entered politics, but then you decided to step aside.
If I stayed in Euskal Herria, I was linked.

What exactly did he do? Are you going to tell me?
No. I don't want to know about that, either people or anything. The thing is, they were looking for me.

And did you get a chance to go to Venezuela?
I didn't know what to do with my life. My friends took brides and married. Chevere [perfect]. I also took the novel, but…

I didn't want that.
I didn't do it, I didn't feel good.

But that life was the only choice.
Otherwise, you saw it wrong. That was the normal way, it was an obligation, a cultural thing, not a matter of feelings. I also had a boyfriend, but I didn't want to take that risk and that commitment. So I said, I'm going around, I'm going to go to the missions, I'm going to give, I'm doing what I can, and so I'm also going to delay that other problem, and with one stone two birds. Indeed. I spoke to a priest, who contacted me with a Madrid association, the Association of Secular Missionaries AMS. The seclars, the nuns, you didn't have to vote, we were volunteers. And so it was my turn to Guajira.

When you went, you didn't think you would stay that long.
I went to clarify my life, and I have to pass, do my whole life and I don't have it yet.

What was Guajira like? The
Guajira peninsula is fragmented, part of it is from Colombia and part from Venezuela. There they are guajiros, another culture… Well, like Euskal Herria. Divided, we were also divided by the French on the one hand and the Spanish on the other, being exactly the same.

Then he felt identified with Hangoa.
There I identified and there I learned what the people were. How the people felt, they taught me. You learn and open up the world with other experiences.

How did it resolve on missions?
First the priest told us that we had to start teaching. Their children were Guajiros, they didn't know Spanish. Here, going to school in Bidania, we got the nuns because we talked in Euskera, and to the Basques who were mistreating us, a terrible thing; so, I had that experience and went there to do the same to these children, it hurts... Then I went to the Capuchins and to the priest I told him that I would work, but I did not give catechesis. I told him about the experience I had in my village, I told him that they had another language there and that it was not going to hurt them. The cure accepted it, and then I started working socially.

How long was he there?
Three years. In that town of Guajira, we managed to start schools, we also put water and light, and I worked.

Did he return to Basque Country later?
Yes. My father died fallen from the tree and I came. But I went back to Venezuela.

On missions?
I wanted to keep working, I liked being a social worker, a lot, and I saw that some people gave him another alternative to live with joy. I didn't want to go to church, I wanted to go free, and then I knew a nun from Azpeitia, now he just died, Arantxa, and through her I met a friend of his, Eladia, Asturian. He had a school and I left there. But before I worked in a clinic, in a library… I was looking for work.

Where in Venezuela was that?
That in Caracas. Then I went to the mountain, to Petare, and all my life I've done there.

He has been a professor, among others.
There was a great school, that of the Jesuits, but there were also the best of the neighborhood, not the miserable of the town. Although the Jesuits do not accept it, that is the case. The classes ended at five and a half in the afternoon, so we asked the principal to stop using the classrooms after the ordinary classes, and five and a half to eight and a half other children came to study, children from our neighborhood. At five and a half the regular students came out, with their uniform, with a backpack, elegant, and our own came, the notebooks in plastic bags, without uniform, in chanclets… The jets, which were ours. I gave classes first to the normal and then to the abnormal. And at one point in time, there was no child in our community who couldn't read or write. That is what we achieved.

It also created a special method for teaching children to read and write, the Julio method.
I've been a special teacher. I was going to school, and the first job was to put the tables in a circle. With the desks on lines one after the other, a terrible thing, I get chills, and the teacher doesn't get a big table, the teacher gets a table like everybody else. From an attitude point of view, the children were very difficult and I had to notice how to do it. It happened that a kid's father would kill the other guy's father, that he would kill his cousin, and there was a hatred, so I would have a bag full of notebooks and ask them to write me things there, to go building the friendship between me and the students. I read their writings every day and I would answer them, and if someone had misconduct, I would throw them away, tell them that I was sad, I was always affective. I had only two books, the Little Prince and Platero and I. The former used it to work on the affective aspect and the latter used it for the richness of language. I taught them how to make macramé, how to make cakes, then we sold, and with the money we got, we went to the beach every day. Do you know what that is?

In October it will be six years
when I came back, and it's like it was yesterday. I live there every day. I wake up very soon to be aware of others.

Why did he come back?
I got sick, I had dizziness. I was very bad, I couldn’t walk, I had to go hand in hand with others, and I came here and… After so many years it was very hard to leave the march in the hands of others. The doctor told me I had a great depression. Having to give up everything was terrible.

Have you improved a bit?
Yeah, I'm better. Then I got this job. I came without anything. Nothing. I came here and asked if I had help, and they told me that my family should help me. They have not helped me, I do not understand why. I was young, but I was six years old. And then I got this job, taking care of Mari Carmen. As a young man I lived with him, we are friends.

Leire Ibarguren collected last year his experiences in a book called Petare. What has the experience been like?
All right. I managed very well with him. I wanted to empty laughs, talk, say. Leire came with another, with Miren, and they understood me how I wanted me to understand him, so it has been a sweetness for me. But in that book is not everything I've lived. I have appeared in Venezuela on a lot of television shows, there everyone knows me.

How do you see the current situation in Venezuela?
Now I would say nothing for Venezuela, it has changed a lot. But I'm with the government. People say they don't do this or that, but they're related. All the alternatives are related, Cuba is also… They do enough to stand.

Did you think back?
I don't think I'm coming back. It's a huge sadness, but that's the reality. In addition, I'm working and I need this money. I have children, I have to help my son, I have to send money every month. And children are forever.

How is it adapting in everyday life here?
I'm so happy, you know why? Because I'm doing one important thing, taking care of two people and giving them great security. I'm very special with them. There I have left very large traces that will one day be erased, but there is plenty of time to do so.

I'm a very believer. I don't believe in church, but I do believe in God. I have had very hard experiences. They came with the machine guns and took my house off, and I stayed in the street with my son, but I soon felt like working again. I was told they were going to kill me and after the scare I started again. Who gives me that strength? I have to have something inside. I say I have a spring, a spring that doesn't run out. Do you have any other questions?

What now asks life?
I have so many sweet experiences... I stop the bad ones, live with the good ones, take care of those in this house, last for many years, and I also have good health to live with them for many years. I don't want anything else. And of course, I'd like to see free Basque Country [laughs].