The Basque in Boise Idaho

It is fascinating to me having lived in Boise now for almost a decade. I grew up an hour away out in the farming community, where some of my friends were Basque. I remember the amazing wedding celebration of a Basque friend when I was a young girl. I have often walk around downtown catching the festivities and dancers out in front of the museum.

I love this culture and the closeness of each other in their families. It was really fascinating to me the other night in the basque center with my friend Brecca as we listened to the jamming of the basque musicians. I would LOVE to learn how to play this style of music with those fun instruments! While the older couples danced I walked around reading all about the history of how Boise was a main place for jobs in the Basque young communities. How hard would that have been leaving home to work herding sheep or attending a boarding house from Northern Spain to Boise Idaho? Yet these jobs of cleaning, canning and cooking in boarding houses fascinated me! They worked hard and played hard:-) They even all ate together and offered others not staying at the boarding house to eat with them as well! They sat around the big sturdy table socializing through the evening after dinner was served. This house tour was impressive for I have walked by this house ALL the time! I had always thought it had been moved there to be next to the museum.  How did they know to save this home right where it was originally built? I wondered to myself while looking out the windows to the newer bigger buildings and shining city lights of downtown Boise as it surrounded us completely. I couldn't help but feel like I have been born in the wrong time of history once again! For I would have loved to of lived in this home watching Boise grow and seeing that Grove street when  was full of trees, instead of the red brick, sidewalk and intersection lights that it has become now......I understand clearly it was hard work back then, but it was MY KIND of hard work! The cleaning and the cooking was something very social. The table was full of hard working miners or sheep herders, playing cards and visiting away the evenings! This is my kind of life truly! I like hard work, I like growing food from the gardens or sewing up a patch or hole in my pants. I saw a beautiful life in this beautiful historical home. It once was a basque boarding house, it hasn't changed on the inside but the city around it has! Our culture is very different now. This home symbolizes togetherness, Now it is full of things from another world, another time.

I loved the music, the dancing and the culture of the basque people! I like these boarding houses, the idea of providing lonely people far from home with safety. Of caring for the sick and being together stronger and healthier! Most importantly of the happiness they shared with the whole world around them! I would truly enjoy such a home to give to others, of comforting food to make and many long hours of dancing! If you want to learn more about the basque here in Boise, then go to the center and museum even eat some yummy spicy chorizos in the next door restaurant Leku Ona!

We really have an amazing place here in Boise that lets the world spin away and change, while the Basque community stays the same! 



The strongest hands give the best hugs!