I've received a practical reminder of the benefit of Esperanto.

I've been running a blog for a little over 5 years, focussing on faith, the environment, politics, and anything else that catches my eye. It has been modestly successful I suppose, and regularly gets 500 visitors a day. But when I look at where those visitors come from, it is almost always half US and 40% UK, with most of the remainder coming from Australasia and Canada.
My Esperanto blog gets nothing like that number of visitors, but in the last two days I've had Venezuela, Italy, Ireland, USA, Colombia, Japan, Spain, France, Philippines, USA and UK in my logs. I think that's remarkable.

I haven't 'come out' as an esperantist yet, partly because I wasn't sure I'd be successful in learning the language, but mostly because there is no denying that Esperanto has an image problem. But whatever its image may be, I've received hard evidence that Esperanto really does open up the world.

richardhall:in the last two days I've had Venezuela, Italy, [...]

That almost surely was me

But whatever its image may be, I've received hard evidence that Esperanto really does open up the world.

Absolutely right Richard. Using Esperanto I have been able to communicate with others from France, Germany, Italy, Venezuela, Russia, China,.... and we use OUR language, not mine or theirs.
(I can even understand people from the USA now )

I was certainly that guy from the Philippines.

I will be the guy from the USA =P