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<\/p>\n“Hi!”<\/p>\n
“Well, hello. How come you’re not inside?”<\/p>\n
“I’m hot blooded. I was getting too hot in there. I’m warm blooded in the summer and cold blooded in the winter, I save up all my summer heat for winter and burn it off then.”<\/p>\n
“Are your parents in there?”<\/p>\n
“My dad is. And my sister. My mom and my brother are at St. Herman’s. I live in Wasila on Lazy Mountain.”<\/p>\n
“How far is that from here?”<\/p>\n
“Oh, a couple of half hours. Where are YOU from?”<\/p>\n
“I’m from Seattle.”<\/p>\n
“Wow! How many years have you been here?”<\/p>\n
“More like days. How many days. Ask me how many days I’ve been here.”<\/p>\n
“Okay, how many days have you been here?”<\/p>\n
“Four.”<\/p>\n
“How did you get here?”<\/p>\n
“Well, I flew from Seattle, and then I drove here from Anchorage.”<\/p>\n
“Last time I was here I went all the way down to the bottom of the cemetery.”<\/p>\n
“Is there anything down there to see?”<\/p>\n
“No, but I went all the way down there anyways.”<\/p>\n
“Are you in school? What grade are you in?”<\/p>\n
“I’m not in school. I mean, I’m sort of in school. I’m home schooled. I’m in first grade.”<\/p>\n
“Do you like it?”<\/p>\n
“Actually, no, I mean, I like Russian and Science.”<\/p>\n
“Wow! You’re learning Russian! That’s cool. Do your parents speak Russian?”<\/p>\n
“No, but my grandmother does. We went to visit her once in Illinois where she’s from but now she lives here with us.”<\/p>\n
“So, do you speak Russian with her?”<\/p>\n
“Not really. But we have this computer, we use it for school and it crashed and now it only plays videos in Russian.”<\/p>\n
The little Russian Orthodox church emptied out and my new young friend ran off to meet his parents. A woman in a head scarf came and stood next to me. “He’s not shy, that one, is he?”<\/p>\n
“Nope, I enjoyed his company very much.”<\/p>\n
“Have you been inside the church?”<\/p>\n
“Not yet, I was waiting for the service to finish. I didn’t want to interrupt.”<\/p>\n
“Oh, you’d have been very welcome. Go have a look now, Father is still in there teaching the kids, please, go have a peek. And have a good Sunday!”<\/p>\n
I made my way back over the icy path and tip-toed inside. It smelled of incense; there were little icon paintings all over the walls. The priest was seated in a low chair surrounded by serious, pale children who eyed me as a stranger. The priest didn’t look up, he just read to the kids from the bible. I smiled at the older sisters in the entry way and quietly went back into the churchyard.<\/p>\n
Outside this little church, a white building with blue trim and onion domes, there’s a sign. There’s a native language inscription and a translation. “Thank you, you came here.”<\/p>\n
No, no, thank YOU. The pleasure is ENTIRELY mine.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The tiny village of Eklutna is about a half hour drive from Anchorage and it’s home to a Russian Orthodox church. Make the trip to see the cemetery, which is full of spirit houses (here’s a nice story<\/a> on NPR about them).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Hi!” “Well, hello. How come you’re not inside?” “I’m hot blooded. I was getting too hot in there. I’m warm blooded in the summer and cold blooded in the winter, I save up all my summer heat for winter and burn it off then.” “Are your parents in there?” “My dad is. And my sister. … <\/p>\n