Gabin Forcier: meeting young Esperantists, episode 4.

We are now halfway through the journey and March 2022 has been marked by meeting Esperantists!

I attended two events with around thirty participants- one in Toulouse and one in the Netherlands. These weekends were an opportunity to take part in lessons and discussions on topics related to language and other subjects, such as democracy, learning languages and Europe). The conversations were extremely rich, involving a dozen different nationalities, which drove interesting discussions and different points of view. At the Toulouse event, half of the participants were young people aged between 19 and 30. The vast majority spoke good English but everybody chose to speak Esperanto! The conversation flowed so well in the fun and festive setting that you almost forgot that it was happening in Esperanto!

Next I headed to Rotterdam in the Netherlands to visit the "Centra Oficejo”, home to the Universal Esperanto Association, libraries and archives of all of the books and journals that have been published in Esperanto! Needless to say, I was very impressed with the number of books, covering all kinds of subjects, from every aspect. I’d never envisaged such a vast amount of material! I met with more young European Esperantists who are volunteering for a year in Rotterdam, and spent almost a week with them visiting the city and staying with them.