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Cultural celebration
Hundreds of people made the annual trek to Mountain Home to relive the culture and language of the Basque people during a yearly event held in a small park on the city's west side.
The 53rd Annual Basque Picnic on Saturday is often the one day out of the year where these people can get together and enjoy a special friendship forged by tradition.
"It's a good time where we can come together and enjoy traditional Basque food," said Charlie Griggs, who grew up in a Basque family in the Grand View area. His family made the trek from Boise to spend time with his grandmother, who lives in Mountain Home.
"The Basque culture is huge; it's like family," Griggs said. "I'm glad to introduce my kids to the culture."
Each year, dozens of members from the Euskal Lagunak organization come together to plan and run the festival. These representatives include Basques from Elmore, Owyhee and Ada counties.
Originally held in Carl Miller Park, local Basques plan the yearly celebrations around the birthday of St. San Ignacio, the patron saint of Basques.
Saturday's picnic was the first time Ray Anchustegui had been back to Mountain Home in many years. His family left Idaho about 28 years ago and just recently moved back to Boise.
"We used to come here every year back when the picnic was in Carl Miller Park," Anchustegui said.
In fact, he still remembers when the pelota, or outdoor racquetball court was build at the local Basque park in Mountain Home. It was a project his grandfather helped build.
The unseasonably hot temperatures didn't deter people from attending, said Julie Benzie, a spokesperson with this year's event.
"We ended up having a really good turnout," she said. "It really picked up once we started doing the kids games."
Over the past 53 years, history has shown that Basque people, especially the older ones, will always attend these picnics regardless of the weather, she added. In fact, it's the older generations of Basques that are the first to show up at the picnic and will stay until the festivities wrap up later that evening.
This year's festival featured a traditional ethnic feast, which included lamb, rice and red beans. During the afternoon, people had the option of ordering meal items a la carte versus buying the entire plate.
In the past, people wanted to order the dinner but some would decide against it because they didn't want the lamb or something else on the menu.
Introducing that change at last's year's picnic was a hit for many people, according to representatives from the local Basque association.
During the evening, people also sampled cuisine like chorizo -- a deep-fried sausage. Each year, people will eat about 500 pounds of this traditional Basque treat.
As a way to pass along the Basque culture to their children, organizers hosted a series of games for these youngsters. The younger ones dashed back and forth during a series of races while others bounced to the finish line in the sack race while boys and girls vied for dominance in a tug-of-war.
In addition to earning bragging rights, competitors like Coral Ytuarte earned $1 coins for winning these children's races.
Meanwhile, older contestants put their pride on the line during the Txinga, or Basque weight carrying, competition. Geared for teens and adults, the strongman event required people like Ben Monistereo to haul sets of weights over a preset course with scores based on how far people could tote this weight before dropping them. He muscled his way to the top of this year's adult competitors after he posted an official distance of 659 feet before the 210 pounds of combined weight slipped out of his hand.
Each competitor had their own reasons for taking part. Leanne Bauer joined women's strength event after she watched a friend compete.
"Getting out in front of people was the hardest. I'm just not a person who likes the attention," said Bauer, who hauled a pair of 55-pound hand weights 200 feet before she dropped them.
For others like Leal Uberuaga, discovering there was a women's competition was all the incentive she needed to compete.
The love of the Basque culture took center stage Saturday evening during a performance by the Oinkari Dantza Taldea. The Boise-based dance group helped people relive many of the Basque traditions from their native homeland.
People like Miren Aizpitarte have been a part of the dance team for a number of years. She started dancing with the Basque group when she was 14 years old. After she went to college four years later, she switched to playing music for the Oinkari dance team.
During the evening, Aizpitarte played music on a trikitixa, or Basque accordion. Meanwhile, fellow musician Tyler Smith played a txistu, a traditional one-handed flute.
This year's dance team featured several new members. Among them was Brenna Garro, who joined the group a few months ago.
"I've been dancing since I was four (years old) and decided I wanted to continue," Garro said.
Her favorite dance is the Lapurdiko Makil, or stick dance, which originated in the French province of the Basque homeland.
The dance involves moves where the dancers strike together short wooden staffs. Local Basques believe these moves reflect times when people beat sticks together to ward off evil spirits.
However, the Ikurriņa, or flag dance, remained the one with most significance for local Basques. The audience applauded and cheered as a member of the dance team waved the Basque flag above other members of the dance troupe as they bowed in reverence to their native homeland.
According to members of the dance troupe, the Ikurriņa remains an important symbol of the Basque people. For years, this dance was banned in their native country as Spanish dictator Francisco Franco tried to suppress their culture, they said.
Home to one of the world's oldest democracies, the Basques include approximately 3 million people living in a region about the size of Rhode Island nestled between France and Spain.
The first Basques immigrated to the United States around 1860 and became the first people to fish for cod off the Grand Banks of New Foundland with others settling in places like California.
Economic woes in their homeland prompted many more to come to America between 1890 and 1900 with the first Basques coming to Mountain Home around 1910, according to Basque historians. They made their living herding sheep and cows with some of the original ranching buildings still standing in Mountain Home.