Bakersfield, California, USA. Almost a week ago, organizers of Jaialdi, the massive Basque-American celebration in Boise Idaho, announced that they were forced to postpone the event again. Originally planned for 2020, and postponed until 2021, it has now been postponed until July of 2022. The reason being, with the given facts, they could not be sure that it could be held safely in the traditional way. This week, NABO the Federation of Basque Entities in North America, has adopted a similar decision in regards to its annual Udaleku program.
Last year, in an abundance of caution and responsibility, in a parallel sequence, NABO canceled Udaleku 2020 to be hosted by the Basque Club of Utah. The organization of the camp then passed for 2021 to the Kern County Basque Club, but at this point, it seems difficult to believe that the Coronavirus situation, particularly in California, will improve enough to allow an event such as Udaleku to be carried out safely. And so, the Kern County Basque Club in Bakersfield, and NABO have decided to cancel the 2021 edition, and start looking at 2022.
This has not been an easy decision. Now for a second year in a row, children between the ages of 10 and 15 in the United States are left without access to participate in this important initiative in their training and educational process in their growing as persons and as Americans of Basque descent. But people agree that this is the most appropriate decision, with the hope that throughout this year, the necessary progress will be made to defeat COVID-19 and achieve some kind of normalcy and return to life closer to like we knew it before the pandemic.
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