JEB - Junularo Esperantista Brita

Whatever the weather, must have told himself Zamenhof just before he chose to be born on 15th December 1859.

Later on, when he was 28, he went public with his project of a constructed language striving to improve, or rather to bring a new quality into, the international understanding; but that was in July, so he was actually only 27 and a half.

Is it possible to breathe a soul into an artificial language? Nobody knew the answer then, but now we do: yes, it is, but it takes more than one man; and a better weather than the December one.

Sore throat, all sneezing and coughing, looking forward to the Zamenhof party in London Esperanto Club in a well-heated room, with wine and all, my mind inadvertently wanders to the months long past when the weather was good enough for the London Esperanto Club, instead of your regular club session, to meet for once outdoors for a kluba promeno.

That Friday morning I had this idea of joining this promeno, but it turned out that finding out about the meeting point wouldn't be that easy: the club bulletin didn't mention it, but it rather had a hotline you could call to receive a guide with a map in a word document. So it would be a far-away place and a journey very hard to describe, I reckoned.

Grown-ups have strange ways sometimes, I told myself when I received the said document and, even if my dodgy pre-viewer didn't show me the map at all, I could only wonder why the bulletin didn't mention at least those three words which would describe the meeting point with crystal clearness and an almost-GPS accuracy, without any need of pictures or multimedia: "Hampstead Heath Station" (or in the bulletin it would actually say "Stacio Hampstead Heath", as it is in Esperanto, but the grown-ups are serious enough not to translate the names of the stations as we playful young lot sometimes do -- "Stacio Hamsteda Erikejo" -- what do you think, still crystal-clear and accurate?).

I relayed the info (minus the word document but adding also some info about trains to the exhaustive list of bus connections) to the mailing list of our completely informal but fairly active group of Esperanto-speaking youths, and when I later turned up on the spot I was nicely surprised how successful I was in convincing the lot that the promeno would be worth the while.

And you can bet it was. Here comes Davido, the prezidanto of the club (which could be translated as chairman or president, the choice is yours), who apparently has a lot of interesting stories -- sometimes a bit of halushka (the semantic root of this loanword from Esperanto slang is common with "hallucination") as you will see -- to share while we are enjoying the walk through Hampstead Heath.

In this place, Davido tells us, it is not quite unlikely to run into George Michael, who lives nearby and sometimes enjoys the romanticity of Hampstead Heath's bushes, especially when it's dark.

Later on, we start talking about George Michael's friend Geri Halliwell: as she was named a UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador, she was said to learn some Esperanto, Davido volunteers the information.

That promptly makes me start confabulating: what if we actually run into George Michael: first I would ask him "Are you George Michael" and if he says yes,we can tell him, "Listen, learn the language Geri Halliwell speaks". That would be better than telling him to "learn Esperanto", as he might not know what it is and forget the name until he gets his... erm... Internet connection working, which might be quite tricky in the bushes, while he won't probably forget Geri's name.

Davido seems to be skeptical to this confabulation of mine: he says George Michael would ask "you mean English?" as he won't be aware of the fact that Geri learned Esperanto. And who knows how it actually is with her Esperanto.

I didn't see Geri Halliwell in an event of Esperanto-speakers -- honestly, I have looked at the pictures on her website and I don't seem to recognise her. Although that doesn't prove anything as she might just have gone to those I didn't go to, and I am rubbish at recognising people on pictures anyway.

In the end, all the debate turned out to be purely academical one as we didn't meet George Michael after all. I tried to take a picture of some rabbits (or hares) but it didn't work out very well as I am rubbish at taking pictures also. As the picture is rubbish I can't show it to more knowledgeable people to tell whether they were rabbits (kunikloj) or hares (leporoj). (At least I have my terminology clear.)

Nice moments to remember at the tomorrow's Zamenhof Party in London Esperanto-Club. And who knows, maybe also Geri Halliwell will brush up her Esperanto at lernu.net and will turn up, but I really can't say for sure.

What I can say for sure is that you will meet a bunch of interesting people, young and old, from many different countries, as this is what Esperanto, Zamenhof's childhood dream which came true, is good at: diminishing borders and bringing people together. That's why we all meet to celebrate Zamenhof day and to drink (preferably, but not necessarily, something of green colour) to the international understanding.