Everything
was ready in Campinas, São
Paulo for a great meeting of fraternity
and great happiness. Over three
hundred inscriptions had already
arrived from all over Brazil and
curiously enough, from Argentina,
Uruguay, Peru and Colombia. Just
from Bahia state alone, came over
forty, mainly from the capital
city Salvador. From Montes claros,
almost Bahia, only half a dozen.
For the first time in history,
the Montes Claros Esperanto-Klubo
came to a Brazilian Esperanto
Congress, even though the last
one had also happened in our state
of Minas Gerais, in the historical
city of Ouro Preto. Too many people,
principally for a cold morning
in July, when more than one hundred
and fifty speakers of this international
language filled in the last inscriptions:
teachers, students, writers, artists,
young and old, conventionally
prohibited to speak in any other
language besides the one created
by the genius of Zamenhof.
I
didn’t yet know the professor
Elvira Fontes, general secretary
of the convention. I had only
spoken to her by telephone a few
times and, as strange as it seems,
a greater admiration and friendship
could not be found in face of
the simpatia and goodness that
she always let bloom. Senior school
master, writer, dictionary composer,
Madame Elvira Fontes has the charisma
of the teacher Marina Lorenzo
Fernandez, with the same physical
size and spiritual richness. What
an enchanting woman! On the male
side, the professor Walter Francini,
also from Sao Paulo, this looking
very much like our “Ducho”,
person and voice, calm and good.
He is such a good companion it
is as if we were in constant companionship,
selling magazines, newspapers
and books in the bookshop Thais.
Both of them, Madame Elvira and
Francini of coursee, gave that
important meeting an refreshing
atmosphere of our old Montes Claros,
Robust heart of the hinterland
of Francisco Sa!
On
the way to Campinas, also in Sao
Paulo, taking advantage of the
new bus we had taken, a Gontijo,
the teacher Antonio Felix, Cynthia,
Juliano and I, of course, has
already made our first investidas,
trying to anticipate these four
wonderful days in the world of
Esperanto. Felix and I, more experienced,
almost veterans, already knew
what was going to happen. Carlos
Jose, and the others whom had
traveled separately, would by
only beginners, with the anticipated
natural curiosity, proper to new
beginners. Fear of not understanding?
Fear of being put to the test?
Completely normal…
It
was with tremendous satisfaction
that I reencountered my old friend
Saraiva, Adolf Miranda, the master
Nelson Perreira, Dorini, Xaxa
Arruda, Paiva, the Columbian Aragon,
Eleusa Varanda,Nina and Dayse,
marvelous people that live distant
from each other but getting together
at least once a year, when the
comprisso yearly congress date
comes near. How gratifying it
was to be side by side witht the
important doktoro Victor Sadler,
the director of the Universala
Asocio, who was touring Brazil
at the Esperanto village Bona
Espero, in the state of Goias.
Sadler, one of the most notable
professors that I had ever known,
had lived and breather Esperanto
for twenty years, day and night,
thoughts and dreams in the neutral
universal language. It was as
if Esperanto was his mother tongue,
naturally native. In England,
in Holland, in New York, in Beijing
or Brasilia, Sadler is the eternal
esperantalist.
The
wole convention went quite smoothly,
pleasant and invigorating, the
most live example of fraternity
and linguistic simplicity. We
were all one family, united in
Esperanto, level of culture or
age completely unimportant. Next
year, in Belo Horizonte, Minas
Gerais, we will be reunited once
more for four more wonderful days
of Esperanto, the language of
the future. For four sublime days
our state capital will be la urbo
de la espero, the city of hope.
