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This is news to no-one, but Parker is a language geek. He’s spent a considerable amount of time learning French, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto, and American Sign Language. However, the only language in which he is really fluent, other than English, is Esperanto. And so, when Mira was born, he chose to speak to her in Esperanto from birth — giving her the gift of bilingualism and the curse of being an even bigger geek than Parker.
And so, Mira is a native Esperanto speaker. There are only about ten native speakers in Canada, and few thousand in the whole world. Amazingly, there are even families of native speakers that go back three or four generations. Once a year, these native speakers gather somewhere in Europe for a week of deep Esperanto immersion. This year, the gathering was in Geyer, a small town in rural Saxony famous for its collapsed tin mine.
Note: This is an extra long edition of Adey Shaw Reporter. I thought it would be nice to write down and share the full story of our adventures in Esperanto Germany. It has a couple hundred words about each day of a ten day long trip. However, given the nature of the event, a fair number of those words are not in English. All the words are either in Esperanto or German. I’ve italicized all foreign words below and supplied translations. German nouns begin with capitals letters, such as Milche (milk), whereas Esperanto nouns, like bovo (cow), do not.
Mira and Parker set out at 14:00 on Sunday July 21st, from Pearson, bound for Leipzig via Dulles, DC, and Frankfurt. The connecting flights were perfectly aligned, and the trip went smoothly. Mira even slept for most of the long flight from Dulles to Frankfurt. Their gate at the Frankfurt airport had this wonderful Lufthansa climber.
Mira and Parker had a gap day booked at the Leipzig airport because they expected worse travel conditions on the way to Germany. And so, they arrived bright and early at Hotel Campanile, a small hotel between the Leipzig Halle airport and the train station. It had a lovely breakfast service. It turned out the cleaning staff only spoke Spanish. Parker could interact with them much better than the otherwise mostly German speaking staff.
The next leg of the trip was a bit more “eventful”. We left the hotel in time to spend an hour in downtown Leipzig, and get some icecream. Mira enjoyed this exotic chocolate Kugle.
We caught a train from Leipzig, headed to Chemnitz. This was generally headed in the right direction, and we got to see a lot of beautiful country side. So far, everything was going according to plan. We were going to Annaberg-Bucholz via Chemnitz. However, at Chemnitz, things really got “eventful”. As soon as we got on the train, DB Navigator, the train system app, announced that out trip was impossible. The train was going to go out of service, and there would be no more train service in that direction all day. (We figured all this out with the help of a couple friendly strangers. Thanks!) Initially, we got a new bus ticket to Annaberg-Bucholz, but it was going to leave three hours later. After some quick messaging with the Esperanto Parents group, we realized that we could get a bus to Geyer itself. And there would be another Esperanto parent on the bus with us! That’s how we met Laurent and Ĝiĝi, Mira’s first friend at REF.
tk: Ĝiĝi’s backpack falls of the bus.
Due to some delays, we missed our connecting bus at Thum. This meant that there was neither bus nor train to Geyer. A few friendly strangers offered to drive the two clueless single-father polyglots to Geyer. However, the friendly strangers didn’t have car seats, which are required by German law. Luckily, one of the organizers of REF was able to drive over to Thum and pick us up. And so, we arrived at Geyer on at 16:30 Tuesday July 23rd.
On Wednesday July 24th, we spent our first full day at REF. The experience was wonderful. The children played all day – indoors and outdoors, as the weather permitted. During a sudden rain storm, several covered picnic outdoors became sekaj domoj (dry houses) which the kids imagined to be all sorts of things: ships, trains, boats, and cottages.
After the rain, Laurent and I took Mira and Ĝiĝi for a walk in search of the akvofalo (waterfall) which is a short walk from the residence. We were surprised to find a Wassertretbecken (water treading basin) fed from a stream running off the waterfall. The kids stripped naked, hopped in, and enjoyed a dip in the waterfall fed pool. Laurent and I agreed that the whole scene was very German.
On Thursday, we hiked 3.5km to the Greifensteine, a large rock formation and a local tourist attraction. The hike was visually stunning. It passed through farmers’ fields and a beautiful wooded area. Everything was so calm and peaceful. When we arrived, the group split in to rock climbers and playground climbers. Mira and I were in the latter group. We played with Ĝiĝi at the playground. After a couple hours of play and climbing, Mira was ready for an order of Kinderice (kiddy icecream).
Whenever Esperanto comes up in conversation with strangers, Mira is quick to point out that bovo means cow. On our hike to the Greifensteine, we saw a real herd of bovoj. Mira was delighted by these real bovoj in Esperantujo (Esperanto Land).
On Friday, we played with water all day. Mira and her friends assembled this play canal system, which came to be known as the akvomaŝino (water machine). They were delighted to pump the water, push the boats around, and operate the locks. As our friend Syd Hegele says: “To keep kids entertained, just add water.”
In the early afternoon, we hiked back to the beach with Ĝiĝi and Laurent. The hike out was rainy, dark, and grey. The clouds parted when we arrived at the beach, and everyone had a lovely time splashing about in lake and playing with the sand. After the beach, Parker got fresh Quarkkrapfen for the kids. (The adults tied themselves in knots trying to translate the name of this local treat.)
In the evening, we took our group photo. Just look at these happy geeks!
On Saturday, we found out that our stroller had a flat tire. Xavier, a bike enthusiast in the group, had a patch kit for the tire and immediately set to work. My only task was to keep the kids distracted, while Xavier worked on the tire. The big event of the day was playing with professional grade bubbles. The kids loved making massive bubbles and popping them.
Parker even had a spare moment to play Ebbe & Flut (Ebb and Flow), a hidden gem of German board game design. The game played with a special deck of fifty cards. Each player gets a complete set of twenty-five cards in five ranks (1-5) and suits (A-E). The players then lay the cards down in a shared five-by-five grid to form elaborate chain reactions which cause their cards to “ebb and flow” across the board. It is a lovely game. Much to my suprise, the game is still available for purchase, despite being printed in 2001.
Three of the families at REF are Catholic, so we went along with them to church on Sunday. The service was entirely in German. Guessing at the scripture readings was fun in itself, and I was able to catch the gist of the sermon. Singing unfamiliar hymns in an unfamiliar language was both edifying and bewildering.
The church itself was lovely. It was quite modern with wonderful acoustics. The pastor didn’t even need a microphone because the space was so well built. One notable geeky thing was the that the hymn numbers were displayed on an eight-segment LED display. I’m told that this is typical of German Catholic churches and that German Protestants are stuck in the last millenium using movable wooden cards.
In the afternoon, Mira and Parker visited the sauna at the gastejo (residence). Mira lasted for about thirty seconds. It was 90C inside. She said that she preferred the experience of a sweatlodge. Luckily, a couple friends were hanging around outside the sauna, and were able to keep Mira entertained while Parker was in the sauna for ten minutes.
On Monday, we went for a trip to Geyersche Binge (tk: spelling?) the site of the former mine. The word Binge means a collapsed mine. The tour through the Binge was fascinating. The mine had operated from 1307 until 1809 (tk: date?) when it collapsed. Fortunately, everyone was eating lunch outside of the mine at the time of the collapse. Two foremen went inside after the collapse, to see how much of the mine was still usable, and were crushed in a secondary collapse. The collapsed mountain, the Binge, was then excavated until the 1960s, after which it was converted in a tourist attraction.
Visiting a site that has been continually used since 1307 is mind-boggling for a Canadian. Things in Europe are so much older than in Canada. One of the families at REF lives on a farm that has been in their family for eight hundred years. It is astounding to think that people were mining tin from 100m underground in the 1300s.
Before the invention of dynamite, the main technique for enlarging the mine was to light fires deep underground, leave them burning over the weekend, and then smash the burnt and cracked rocks. A miner would carry up to a dozen hammer heads because they wore out so quickly. They would switch out the hammer heads as they worked, and the blacksmith would then sharpen them for the next shift. Fascinating!
Our guide was a member of the Brotherhood of Miners, which works to conserve the site and has various parades and historial re-enactments. He spoke to us through a translator. Because he knew that the group was a bunch of language geeks, he talked extensively about the local vocabulary of mining. The miners had all kinds of slang for the mines: the stairs and passages in to and out of the mine were wagons. One drove in to the mine by walking or crawling through various passages. The weather of the mine was its air quality, etc. (All of this vocabulary was in Old German and sounded very quaint to modern German speakers.)
On Tuesday, everyone went for an all day excursion to the highest town in Germany. We decided not to go along with it, and missed a trip on the vaportrajno (steam train), because we knew that we had two long days of travel ahead of us. Instead, Mira and I stayed back with three other families and went on our own little adventures in Geyer. We found a wonderful splash pad with two locks.
On the recommendation of several families, we made our own mini-excursion to visit a master woodcarver’s workshop. NAME NAME is a family run business that specializes in wood carving. After the mine in Geyer collapsed, the region pivoted to making elaborate carvings such as Christmas displays, nativity scenes, children’s toys, and clocks. The shop is famous for its elaborate Christmas displays. An elaborate clock work nativity scene showed the magii arriving on camels, the shepards guarding their flocks by night, etc. Another automata showed every phase of the mining operation.
The shop also serves cake and coffee. We ordered two slices of cheese cake. Mira got a Kalt Milche (cold milk) and I got some Wasser (mineral water). The clerk at the store offered me a beer with my cake, but I declined. Later, I checked with some Germans at REF if cake and beer was a common combination and they said that that was a bit too strange, even though beer seems to go with just about anything in Germany.
On Wednesday, Parker gave a presentation in the garden — Fadenfiguroj: La Plej Internaciaj Ludoj (String figures: the most international games.) Esperantists love internationalism, learning about other cultures, playing games, and trying out new stuff. And so, I taught a number of string figures to the group.
One participant was so enthusiastic that she immediately ordered a copy of Schnurfiguren Aus Allers Welt (String Figures from Around the Worlds / tk: spelling?) and some green paracord. She’ll have all the gear she needs to learn string figures when she gets home.
tk: transition?
The verdaj skoltoj are a scout group similar to Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, but in Esperanto. They learn how to tie knots, make fires, and do various other outdoors-y things. They also have their own repertoire of campy songs in Esperanto. A few verdaj skoltoj went for a week long trip to Czech (tk: name?) before REF, then met up with us in Geyer. Some skoltoj were present at the presentation, and immediately fell in love with the star string figure that I taught them. At the interkulturala vespero (intercultural evening) which traditional ends any Esperanto gathering, the skoltoj showed off their newly learned green star string figure. I wish that I could have seen their presentation, but we for the airport left too early to take part in the interkulturala vespero. Hopefully, in the years to come, I will see some skoltoj making green stars with string.
After the presentation, and a lunch filled with many goodbyes, we started the long journey home. One of the organizers gave us a drive to Annaberg-Bucholz, where we caught a series of trains to Leipzig. At one point, Mira fell asleep in the stroller and we had to board an old train which would be very inconvenient to get the stroller in to and out of. I had about two minutes to get Mira our of the stroller, empty the stroller, fold it up, and wrestle all of our bags on board while holding a sleeping kid. An extraordinarily handsome German muscle-builder said: “Do you want to go with the bikes?” It turned out that there was a special car on the train for people with bikes and accessibility needs. He then grabbed all our luggage, and ran to the correct car. He was so helpful! A real Übermensch (super-man)!
At the end of the day, we arrived back at Hotel Campanile beside the Leipzig airport. We spent our last night in Germany at the same place as our first night. It was nice to arrive back at the beginning.
On Thursday, we woke up bright and early at the Hotel Campanile, where we started our adventures. Breakfast is served at 06:00, and we planned to be at the airport for 07:00 for our 09:05 flight. When we arrived at the airport, bright and early, we realized that we mixed up the time zones and that our flight was really at 15:05 local time! The Lufthansa service counter wasn’t even open when we arrived. Fortunately, we were very early instead of very late.
When the Lufthansa staff showed up, they assured us that there was absolutely nothing they could do. We had to call in to a hotline, and try to re-book our flight by phone. The Lufthansa hotline had to switch us over to the United Airlines hotlin since we originally booked with United. Once I was knee-deep in the morass of phone calls, one of the Lufthansa staff appeared in-person and said that she’d found a way to make it work. We were rebooked for a flight at 10:35. The connecting flights had been re-jigged as well, and we’d be on our way soon.
When arrived at the baggage check to get our new boarding passes, the three Lufthansa staff were laughing, teasing each other, and generally giving the person who rebooked our flights a playful hard time. We gave them all a heartful Dankeschön (tk: spelling / thanks)!
Published: Mar 28, 2024 @ 19:57.
Last Modified: Aug 6, 2024 @ 22:55.
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