Verda Saliko

In her eighties, Raita living in a small Finnish town, is full of energy and zest for life. Her name in Finnish means willow, a plant symbolizing spring and the rebirth of nature. Raita writes articles for magazines in Esperanto, takes part in an international congress as a volunteer, takes care of her favourite flowers in her apartment, takes long walks and regularly visits the sauna. She goes to her adored summer home near the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea to show it to her Esperanto friends from Stockholm and Moscow.Raita, or “Saliko” in Esperanto, talks about her childhood years, her stern father and her caring mother, about her work as a teacher, and about her husband, with whom they lived together for almost half a century.