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Palma, Mallorca.  Mallorca’s Euskal Etxea’s first barnetegi took place on April 28 and 29 and was attended by a large number of the Basque students at the center.  Currently the club has two groups of students learning Basque, one is a basic level course and the other an intermediate, in all totaling 21 students as explained to EuskalKultura.com by teacher Manoli Korta.

Other club members, who normally can’t attend classes during the week, joined the students on the weekend.  Everybody was very satisfied by their experience.  “The idea of the barnetegi came up in one of the Basque classes; on the one hand it allowed the two groups to get to know each other better, and on the other, it allowed those who can’t attend normally to participate.  Finally,  it also presented an opportunity to have a great time together,” Manoli said.

Euskera, dance, txalaparta...

The Schedule at the barnetegi was intensive with sessions all day long.  On Saturday and Sunday there were Basque classes in the morning from 10:30-13:30.  There were also other activities: “On Saturday afternoon we had a cooking workshop and that night we ate what we prepared,” Manoli explained.  “Natxo Knörr came and sang some songs and we all joined in. On Sunday we held workshops on txalaparta and dance.”

[One of the Basque clases at the barnetegi at the Euskal Etxea Artea (photo MallorcaEE)]

An average of 14-15 students participated in the Basque language classes, with the same number participating in the dance and txalaparta workshops.  Without a doubt, the star activity of the weekend was the cooking class that was attended by 30 people who may have been attracted by the opportunity to eat what was prepared for dinner.  Basque classes were taught by professor Manoli and Jesus; the cooking class was taught by Bego and Sandro; the dance class was done by Ander, and txalaparta was taught by Javi. 

“We had a great time and the people were pleased as well.  This experience has also encouraged us to organize a barnetegi annually,” Korta concluded.

The Euskal Etxea Artea has published this video of the barnetegi on its Facebook page: