The Pre-Norooz Meeting

Twelve years ago on a day like this, on March 9, IREJO held the first "antaŭ-noruza renkontiĝo" or "pre-Norooz meeting," to celebrate the coming of the Iranian new year. From that time, there have been more pre-Norooz meetings (although not every year) celebrated in Esfand, the last month in the Iranian calendar. The meeting have been held by IREA in the last few years, but this year again we, the new IREJO, decided to hold the meeting ourselves. We chose the same date for the meeting when the first "renkontiĝo" was held: Esfand 18.

About an hour before the beginning of the program I arrived at the door of Mr. Habibpoor's gallery. As I left the taxi, I saw Soheyl and Farmehr coming. We could easily find the apartment.

The label reads "bonvenu" which means "welcome" in Esperanto.

Elaheh had already arrived there with the "haft sin" table she had promised.

"Haft Sin" is a major tradition of Norooz. (Sorry for the low-quality photos. It seems I need some time to get used to my new cell phone's camera!)

We prepared the memorial cards we wanted to give our guests.

Inside the card you see the large word IREJO, to which is attached a few symbols of Norooz along with the Esperanto green star. Under it, it is printed "Bonan novjaron! 1386" which means "Happy New Year! 1386".

After the cards were ready we quickly made other preparations. We started on 17:10. I was the host of the program. I started by welcoming the guests in Esperanto and then in Persian, then I invited Mr. Mamduhi, current president of IREA, who talked about human communications, languages, and Esperanto. After him Mr. Shafi'ee, the vice-president of IREA gave us the IREA Year Report and also introduced the newly elected Komitato (literally "committee", the legislative body of Esperanto organizations). In the third part of the program, Mr. Torabi (one of the founders of IREJO and later IREA, a chief member of the Komitato, and the editor of Irana Esperantisto quarterly) talked about the future programs of IREA. During his speech something unexpected happened!

Little Alma does not like to be apart from her father for a long time!

After Mr. Torabi's speech we had a not-so-short break. This break is the main reason for which the renkontiĝo is held; after all, it's all about meeting each other. During this time, the guests had time to talk (some of the guests come from other cities and we can meet them only on such occasions), and of course to eat!

After that, I introduced Soheyl as the official speaker of IREJO to the audience. Soheyl talked about what the new IREJO has done since this Fall and what we plan to do. He also informed the participants about two programs IREJO is going to hold: Charshanbe Suri, and an excursion to Taleghan this Norooz.

The renkontiĝo finished by awarding prizes to a few active members, and finally having a group photo.

Here are a few more photos from the meeting. As the host of the program I didn't have much time to take photos. Others have taken more photos which I may post later here.

Note: I know you may have had difficulties understanding this post because I didn't describe all of the terms I used about Iranian traditions. That's because I'm going to have more detailed posts about these traditions in the next few days.

A painting of L. L. Zamenhof, the initiator of Esperanto. Ahmad and Elham brought the painting. I didn't have time to ask them who the painter is, though.

"Haji Firooz" also took part in the renkontiĝo!

A "Sabzeh". The placard reads "Happy Norooz" in Persian and Esperanto.