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EESTI ELU reedel, 19. augustil 2022 — Friday, August 19, 2022
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Ellerbusch Day St. Catharines Estonian Society summer celebration In Port Colborne, on an abso lutely beautiful Saturday (July 30), perfect weather to suit our mood, on the very shore of a sparkling azure blue Lake Erie, wavelets lap ping at the beach, Great Lakes freighters going by into and out of the southern end of the Welland Canal, gulls swooping, the low lying Allegheny hills of New York State and Pennsylvania a dark green band on the southern horizon… and the slanting sails of a “tall ship” on the Lake to please the eye≤ we met, at the home of Toomas Ellerbusch, a setting as spectacular as it sounds, the St. Catharines Eesti Selts hosted at his place. Anyone new to the St.
Catharines Eesti Selts has to be awed and enamoured of the domains of the hosts of our monthly get-togethers. Each is spectacular in its own way. And each has unique character. And each is absorbing, welcoming and sets the tone for camara derie, good talk and just plain happiness to be with people one loves. And each has a particular Estonian feel to it. Each hear kens back to the past but also is happy in the present and looks with purpose and confidence into the future. And what all that ambience does, is draw forth the stories of us all. And we have STORIES, us Estonians. We have stories of our very souls, stories generated by war and loss, by travel and adven ture, by necessity and just plain wanting to see what is “over the horizon”. At Toomas’ place gathering I
Toomas Ellerbusch
TRIINU LUMI kinnisvarafirma müügiesindaja BURLINGTON • HAMILTON • NIAGARA
Right At Home Realty Inc. triinu@triinulumi.com mobiil 289-442-5390 kontor 905-637-1700 fax 905-637-1070
learned for the first time of an Estonian tiny “diaspora” in Brazil of all places! Now my wife of 53 years who has passed away was from Trinidad in the West Indies, so I knew, and all Latvians in the world know that Latvia at one time held sway over the “fair isle” of Tobago, nestled a few miles over the Caribbean Sea from Trinidad. So clearly Estonians had to go one better and “at tempt” to colonize Brazil! And the effort bore fruit, since one of my Estonian friends at our gathering told me tales of life and work in Brazil, with one of the world’s most successful corporations, IBM. His first language is/was Brazilian (Portuguese), second is Spanish, third is English and fourth is Estonian. But of course basically all Estonians are linguists – I have always had great difficulty trying to an swer customs and immigration questions in Estonian on arrival in Asia or Latin America.… so we become “naturally” gifted “multi-linguals” and thereby gain a wider understanding of and easier passage through our world. Toomas was his usual genial host (sporting a foot long Cuban cigar!) with great h umour and open-hearted camaraderie. He even disclosed his “secret” underground lair, replete with esoteric brands of the finest distillation can pro duce, many from Estonia! Plus of course he had his very own “brand” of “medicine” that would cure anyone of whatever “ailed” them. I was lucky to be able to get back “up to the surface” on my own steam. Everybody else seemed quite OK, so maybe more used to the medicine. It did go down very well, easily… perhaps that’s what creates a problem for some… The other phenomenon I am in awe of is that absolutely great food appears as if by magic at our gatherings, one moment the table is bare, the next moment it’s full of very good things to eat… v.in fact so much we were replete very soon. Hats are off to the host and all who help to offer the gathering refreshment and sus tenance. Each gathering has “behind the scenes” activity that often remains unacknowledged, but which makes each occasion such a resounding success. KASPAR POLD
Learn Estonian… (Continued from page 8)
For more information, please see: https://www.visitestonia. com/en/why-estonia/your-quickguide-to-the-estonian-language The instructor for this course is Marju Toomsalu. Marju is a passionate advocate for lan guage and welcomes the oppor tunity to combine her love of language with teaching. She inspires her students to discover the nuances of understanding that language variations hide and offer, and also enjoy selected aspects of comparative linguis tics using simple everyday terms. If you are interested in taking this course, please email Marju (mtoomsal@ryerson.ca) and look the course up in the University of Toronto’s Faculty timetable: https://timetable.iit.artsci.uto ronto.ca/
Depending on number of students with language skills beyond the introductory level, the course will be offered at either the introductory level (EST 100H1F and EST 101H1S) or intermediate level (EST 201H1F and EST 201H1S). The instructor will advise all appli cants of which course will be offered as soon as possible. Information for auditors can be found here: http://sites.utoronto.ca/slavic/ courses/auditing.html. Classes begin on September 8. This course is a key part of the Estonian Studies Program at the University Of Toronto. It is made possible through the generous financial support of Tartu College and Chair of Estonian Studies Foundation in recognition of the importance of the Estonian Studies Program to the Estonian community. PEETER EINOLA
