Six weeks in...

Six weeks in to our time of living in Krasnoyarsk again and we have a regular time slot in our schedule worth gold.  Yesterday we spent the afternoon and evening with Katya and her family.  We had always imagined that an indigenous family would live in lower socio-economic conditions.  Many of the Evenki here live on the poorer side of the river.  Tomorrow we will visit a lady there.
Katya picked us up in her car by our little local food market.  It's not too far down the road to her house.  We imagined that we would be going to an old style wooden village house, especially when she had told us she has chickens a vegetable patch and a banya (sauna house).  All of these elements are traditional and standard in a village dwelling, which is a far cry from life that we understand in the west.
But as we drove we began to realise that this might not be the case.  We passed some of the nicest houses you will find anywhere in a Russian city (or more specifically outside of a Russian city).  We passed the governors residence, which is as fancy as you could imagine.  We passed a stream of new housing developments going up, the latest instalment in the New Russia, the last article talked about.

A short detour to have a look at the river, which is right next to Krasoyarsk's newest suburb.  Not a village style house in sight.  (Mind you, over the river, there are plenty of old Russian village style houses.  Russian city dwellers have traditionally frowned upon houses because of the difficulties they often carry, like the lack of running water.)

Is Katya's house one of these?

Together with her husband she built the house ten years ago, when the land was cheap.  Most people were afraid of living outside the city.  But as Katya had come from a small town in the north, she was not afraid, the chance to get outside the concrete jungle of the city was very appealing.

This is Katya's "tennis court" as she calls it.  A place to play any sport you want, including... cricket?  I reckon we might just have to teach them... :)

Katya's house might not be as fancy as some of the houses around, but it would be quite acceptable in a western country.  But having said that I am constantly reminded every time I return to the west how wealthy society is, and the fact that people have so much more, including so much more than Katya.  We have no idea how filthy rich we are in the west, that to compete with our lifestyle in Russia you have to be an ultra successful businessman- our traditional millionaire in Canalia.  So I'm not claiming that Katya is in this category, just that her place is a lot nicer than the traditional village dwelling we had expected.

Her lovely vegetable garden impressed us with variety.  Abigail had a blast feeding the chooks.  I enjoyed my sojourn in the hot banya.  (A light re-introduction this time around, no one forcing me to sit there longer than I could stand the heat.)

We had our first Evenki lesson, that we led using skills we picked up last year at Equip. The idea of the lesson was to listen carefully to words that we elicited from Katya.  The response from us was to point at various objects that she verbalised, in a game of mix ups.  It was a fun activity to initiate, including her son and daughter.  It's exciting that we are modelling language revitalisation from the beginning or our learning experience.  From now on, the plan is to go to Katya's house every Saturday morning for a language session, that we will plan.  The trade off is that we are providing a model for teaching the language, and that her adult kids get to be a part of the lessons.  To us, it's a win-win all the way.