Today would have been Aita's 63rd birthday.
Every year, I try to honor him with a story, a small window into the person he was, and the threads of culture and memory he left behind. This year's photo is from one of those moments: outside my aitite's lonja (workshop), painting a wooden oar white.
A few days before, I had just gotten my boat license and went out rowing with friends. In pure "kale-kume" (urban child) fashion, I tied the oar on the wrong side of the "tolete" (pic 2). The oar snapped in half. We had to paddle back with a single oar, canoe-style, freaking tf out. Later, we bought a wooden one online, and as tradition calls for, painted it white while singing "Boga boga" ("paddle, paddle") 🚣
Aita and I shared many things, but perhaps most of all: we were specialists in choosing the complicated path. If there was a simple option, we'd somehow find the more intricate one. That instinct gave him curiosity, and probably, a more interesting life 👐
Our family comes from fisherfolk on the Biscayan coast. He loved sailing, rowing, and fixing boat parts. I learned some much later, in scattered pieces, already a kale-kume. He belonged to that generation that grew up in the city — one foot in the sea, the other in a classroom — so what I inherited were fragments: a few knots, a few winds, and the wrong side of the tolete…
Aita also had a fascination with the Basque varieties spoken by his (great) grandparents, especially from Getxo or the Itziar/Lastur area. He loved recalling the old nonstandard pronunciations, like the coastal palatal "j", pronounced as a voiced palatal fricative [ʝ], instead of the Batua-like semivowel [j] or velar fricative [x]. Like in "Basajaun" [basaʝaun] or "Jatabe" [ʝatabe].
He also preserved local words like little treasures: txorta (a bunch), txisbedarra (type of seaweed), arrangorri (a local fish), plus countless expressions.
Once common across the coast. For us, again, lost.
We both loved remembering what had been forgotten, what had survived only as family echoes.
Heritage often comes back in fragments: a sound, a word, a story, a white oar outside the lonja.
Zorionak, aitaxu🎂
Maite zaitugu. 🖤
(2) How NOT to do it 🙅
Originally posted on Instagram on November 13, 2025: view the original post.
Comments
Post a Comment