ZUS ALSO IN BERGARA
Kaixo lagun ! Hola amigo ! Izaten zen bere lehenengo itza berarekin ikusten ziñanean. Gero, patxoak ematerakoan, betik aipatzen zuen Belgikan bezala hiru eman behar zirela.
Ez zen makala Zusek zuen barne indarra eta baikortasuna. Betirako joan zaigu baina betirako geldituko da gure bihotzetan.It is not easy to talk about Zus in past tense.
Only one month ago I was talking with some of her friends about how few days were left she to come as always, in time for Pascuas, the fests of Bergara.
I knew Zus 41 years ago in Belgium. As a modern Erasmus, I traveled to Antwerp after finishing my studies. Differently from the nowdays`, my information was wrong as I went there to practice my French. It was also the time for some Bernaerts to start their walk through the antiques world. The welcome I got those days in Antwerp from Zus as well as from her family was fantastic. Will all Belgians be like that, I ask to myself?
Zus arrived to Bergara, in the Basque Country, there on the year 1960. In this case she was not as Erasmus, but as a visitor who was going to spend a period of time with someone highly trusted for their parents. To understand this trust level it is necessary to go back in the time, neither more nor less than to 1937, when a young woman from Bergara, reached Antwerp as caregiver and supervisor of a big group of children refugees from the Basque Country, running away from the Spanish civil war.
The mutual relation reached to such a confident that in 1960 a Flemish young girl, fourteen years old, in difficult times for any type of international communications, arrived in a village located in a country still recovering from a cruel war, almost internationally isolated, without external economic support and with a complicated and turbulent political atmosphere. In addition, she did not speak nor Spanish nor Basque (the main language in the village).
On the positive side is also necessary to state some points. First of all, the strong support and protection from Maria Ojanguren, the teacher who was with the children of war to Antwerp, proud of the confident of the Bernaerts family, well aware on the responsibility she was assuming, experienced in different fields of managing, fluent in French and with good relations among the population. On the other hand, the scenary, the way of living in Bergara, a population of 10.000 inhabitants at that time, mainly of industrial economy, very quiet and with a society based in a strong family structure, very religious-catholic and with a great social control among its inhabitants. For a teenager from Antwerp, probably, a big shock as well as a big adventure.
And so was how she started her live in Bergara (during the first years, there was not almost lighting in the streets told Zus about her experiences at the beginning. Nobody was able at that time to value the strong and lasting link she was going to develop with the village and its inhabitants.
Along 55 years, Zus spent many periods of time in Bergara. She lived in María´s house, with her sisters and brother in all these visits, as in a second family as she almost was a part of it. To the hardness of the first period was later uniting also the wish of living experiences in a community that she knew and understood better each time. The loneliness of the beginning was changing and she started to account with more and more friends to share fests, talks and feelings.
She knew a culture different in some aspects to the Flemish and similar in others. The way of relation among persons, the life in the streets, the credibility of the given word, the importance and respect to the work…
And of course, she enjoyed the food and the “Sociedades”. She enjoyed the meals of the Basque cooking (some preferred ones: the txipirones, hake in its sauce, salad with tomatoes just in its best point of ripening….helped with good Rioja wine), and the numerous lunch and dinners that Basques uses as a social system of relation and celebration (exaggeratedly in fests time).
And she enjoyed also the music, the music band and the symphonic of Bergara, the Orfeon big Choral Society , the various popular singers groups, and the general fondness for singing in the Basque Country, especially after a good lunch or dinner. And above all, the “tamborrada” the Parade of Drums the night before San Martin, the 16 th of September, where she was more than once the “abanderada” the standard bearer of the Sociedad Umore Ona riding a horse.
And how to forget the presence of Zus each day of the fests at 8 am to watch the “recortadores” (young gymnastic people that play with brave small bulls) and the “encierros” (bulls running on the street), independently from the time she retired to bed the night before. In fests, she was a kind of Hemingway for Bergara and brought with her more than one Belgian friend.
I think that Zus was very happy of having known and lived Bergara and its people. I dare to say that she especially liked the sense of humor, its ironic way of discussing, the type of communication that you only can find in “chiquiteos” (wine glasses that you drink from one bar to another in a marked itinerary with your friends of every day) and lunches, mostly in people of her generation. She loved that atmosphere and of course the friendship relation established with many people for so many years.
It is to suppose that her early experiences in Bergara, the cultural and idiomatic barriers that she had to overcome, her live and growing in two worlds, had a strong influence in her developing as person, the way of watching the world and the friendship.
For me she has always been a very good friend. We have had many opportunities to talk, lunch together, laughing both or with my family or with friends. I have quite often visited her in Antwerp along the time and I have always appreciated her hospitality and even her help sometimes in my job.
In me as a person and in my family she has left a big hole that will not be possible to fill. My three daughters and my wife have always got a big relation with her in her yearly visits to Bergara in May and Septembre. Depending on her often full agenda, we enjoyed one or several lunch, dinners and chiquiteos. There is also a “tant Zus” in Bergara for some young people.
Many people know Zus in the Basque Country and many feel now sorrow and pain from knowing about his death. For many, it makes hard to believe that she is not coming this year for Pascuas, that they will not meet her in the streets or at lunch time.
She will remain forever in our memory with her vitality and joy. Dank u wel Zus.
Our deepest condolences to the Bernaerts family.Iñaki, Arantxa and family
