A week in Esperantujo

 

So, jes ja, I did indeed make the trip to Raleigh. 

As I previously wrote, this year gave me the rare opportunity to experience both NASK (Nord-Amerika Somera Kursaro de Esperanto) and the Landa Kongreso de Esperanto (the annual national gathering of usonaj samideanoj ) during the same week, and in the same place (the campus of William Peace University). 

I'd rather not drone on about how getting to and from Raleigh was partially awkward (Amtrak's the Carolinian is partially reliant on diesel locomotives south of Washington, D.C., and the railroad has to play nice with the likes of CSX, thus tacking on two additional hours of travel time before we finally reached Raleigh). Suffice it to say that it's what followed —NASK and the Landa Kongreso — that will be most memorable for me.

And yes, I was able to get settled into my dormoĉambro (dorm room) despite being a wee late. 

For those unfamiliar with the in-person class format, NASK offers classes for 1) post-beginners (post-baza) (CEFR A2–B1), 2) intermediate (meznivela) learners (B2), and advanced (supera) students. I chose the 'intermediate' class, because I had serious questions regarding certain grammatical points and wanted to get them addressed. 

I didn't take pictures inside my classroom. But I did take notes. (They're not substantial enough to replace my current textbook, but they did get me through the week.) 

Of course, I had to buy books...  a lot of books...

And we can certainly talk about the meals (this was breakfast one morning)...

Classes were held in the mornings and afternoons, so excursions were not exactly in the cards. But there were some fascinating prelegoj (talks): 

one of which featured Dr. Duncan Charters, the current president of the Universala Esperanto-Asocio, speaking on the challenges the UEA is presently facing, 

and one given by five guest students from Nepal (!!) about their own country. 

Of course, what would be an Esperanto gathering without the chance to make new friends... 

(above: Mr. Konstelacio with his teacher Jorge Rafael 'Rafa' Nogueras) 

(a rare in-class photo with 'Simono') 

... and in my case, connect IRL (in real life) with your online community? 

Above three pictures: Together with members of the online community I belong to.

And let's not forget Ria (as in 'ri,' the unofficial Esperanto for 'they / them'). 

In the end, I fared much better at NASK than I had personally expected to. And I feel that, with more effort and study, I could probably have a go at the supera course one day. 

That will depend on what the future of NASK will be (read on). 

I wish I could show as much enthusiasm about the Landa Kongreso  — a hefty percentage of which seemed more about administrative affairs (which can be done more expediently online) than about actively engaging members in stimulating cultural activities. The most I enjoyed about the Kongreso weekend was browsing the two-day libroservo for older books I thought I'd never see and a bilingual contradance night that brought in folks from the Raleigh area who otherwise might not care or be aware of Esperanto as a culturally-uniting force for good. 

As chance would have it, there is already some talk about making serious changes to NASK and the idea of the Landa Kongreso — with the recent spate of extreme weather events due to climate change looming large. Hoss Firooznia of Esperanto-USA offers some possible alternatives to both events in his essay for Usona Esperantisto, and they're well worth the read. 

My one dilemma is that I live in a region of the United States that isn't exactly teeming with samideanoj, and the ones I am connected to online live outside of New York. How likely is it that I will have to leave Long Island to be closer to them? 

I guess time will sort that out soon enough.  

What courage can lead to [video]

Another confession. 

In my previous post, I had mentioned that my return to the realm of Esperanto was due to a special live-streamer on Twitch who often streams in la internacia lingvo.

What I didn't mention is that... 

1) we have since bonded as friends because of Esperanto, and 

2) I have since become one of their chief chat moderators (or 'mods') on Twitch. 

Earlier this year, my streamer-friend nudged me into having a go at submitting a short to Esperanto-USA's Usona Bona Film-Festivalo, or American Good Film Festival (specifically the third edition of the contest) — on the hope that I would gain confidence in my capability to use Esperanto. 

At first, I didn't think I had sufficiently good material... but as it turned out, I did. 

But have a view of the results and then come back to read further. 

What I have, in fact, is a photo and video archive of my years spent in the company of the late, celebrated storyteller / author Diane Wolkstein (11 November 1942 — 31 January 2013). Lots of live performance videos that I recorded myself, plus a megaton of still photos (including an excessive amount taken in and around Diana's old Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York City), none more recent than the year 2018... after which I had stopped visiting New York altogether. 

Sadly, the Diane Wolkstein literary estate, archives included, are now the property of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., so I couldn't use or translate examples of her writing or telling, even in brief fragments. (Diane was herself amused by my initial enthusiasm for Esperanto, but never herself tried it. Nor were any of her 23 books — most of them picture books for young readers — translated into Esperanto, more's the pity.)

I ended up instead assembling images, slowed down video with the soundtracks removed, and free-to-use background music (BGM) files made available by YouTube  to fashion a four-minute video. 

It didn't win, but thus far it has gotten 234 views (and 34 more views on the Canal Esperanto Cuba channel, if you'd prefer to watch there). So I really can't complain. 

Besides, I won heartfelt praise from my streamer friend. That matters more than a cash prize. Far more. 

For those not yet fluent in Esperanto, I apologize for the lack of subtitles. That said, I began by saying how much the simple gear I had at the time (a Flip Video camcorder and a Nikon Coolpix P510 bridge camera) made it possible to capture Diane Wolkstein in full cry. Even today, these digital souvenirs can make me cry. 

Which made her death on the last day of January 2013 — the news of which was drowned out by the media coverage of the passing of Edward Koch, who was at one time the Mayor of New York — even more painful to process. It wasn't just the passing of a friend. Rather, over time, it was the passing of an era. Personal narratives (think The Moth™) had replaced traditional storytelling, and that was well before so much else — COVID–19 included — would eventually come crashing down on all of us. 

I'm not found of personal narratives — more like projected narcissism, really. Except that Kara Diana... ('Dearest Diana...') is pretty much one. That story that I was too timid to tell and yet needed to be told. 

If that wasn't enough, I should also confess how influenced I was by Alain Resnais and Jean Cayrol (with a little help from iconoclast Chris Marker of La jetée reknown, by the way).  I am speaking, of course, of the half-hour collaboration Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard ) (1956), itself a reminder of the horror show that was the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War. Although Resnais is obviously the better known of the collaborators (and I certainly won't write off his body of work, a huge part of the French New Wave, or Nouvelle vague), it was Cayrol's declamation of the narration that snagged me the most. It was disciplined in a distinct way, and I used it as a rôle model for my own meager short. 

My streamer friend, it turned out, had deeply felt the Cayrol influence clearly, without my having to over-explain. I'm still moved by that reaction, months after deciding to give the Usona Bona Film-Festivalo a go. 

I'd love to have another go. I just need to get solid material first. Bonvolu atenti min — do wait for me. 

(You can also watch Kara Diana... as part of the 3a Usona Bona Film-Festivalo playlist on Esperanto-USA's YouTube channel. And don't miss the first, second, and fourth Festivalo playlists if you like what you see.) 

Video 2022 Philip David Morgan for Esperanto–USA. 



 

Jen miaj lerniloj. Meet my study tools.

Jen mia konfesio — confession time for me. 

Like many other students of Esperanto before and after me, I started with the well-worn postal course (if you live in the United States, you can sign up for it via Esperanto-USA's website). Back in the fall of 2005, when I decided I was daft enough to try la Internacia Lingvo, I had a (somewhat foolish) personal goal to ace the course by year's end. 

Foolish, yes, but I did complete the course by year's end. And I did eventually receive an atestilo (certificate) for my efforts. 

And then for some time, I foolishly let things slide. 

Too many other things crowded for attention inside my head — my supermarket job, the mindless scrolling thru social media in general, and my failed effort to create a video channel devoted to traditional storytelling and the performing arts. 

And then there were the occasional naysayers. They included a dear storyteller friend, now long gone and long forgotten by the world (or so it seems).  And a member of my Unitarian Universalist congregation who, at a New Year's Eve party, was of the absolute conviction that Esperanto itself was dead — or at least it was to him. 

While so many people have helped me come around to my original sense that Esperanto is indeed something worth learning and using, the one soul who brought me back to the realm of the gesamideanoj is not just an Esperantist but also a live-streamer —in Esperanto and English — on Twitch. (There is more to this story, but it will require me to introduce you properly to them later.) 

Suffice it to say that seeing how Esperanto has found a home on Twitch, however humble, was enough to convince me to try one more time. 

Back in 2005, the textbooks that were available were of little use to me in terms of developing and enlarging my impoverished personal vocabulary, much less get a firmer grip on grammar. Enter the completely upgraded Teach Yourself Complete Esperanto  by Tim Owen and Judith Meyer (Hachette–Hodder & Stoughhton, 2018, available from Librejo Esperanta). While not without some proofreading and typographical errors — not to mention the idiosyncrasies of UK English that some Yanks may not immediately grasp — it does offer more current vocabulary than its predecessors, along with a gradual easing in of the major grammatical points. 

Not that I would want to yeet my laminated tabelvortoj chart anytime soon... nor do I intend to.

(This post is a work in progress / process and will probably be expanded and revised eventually.)