An African falls in love with a Yakutian woman and moves to the far north: an unusual love story when it's outside - 50C
It's a very kind and warm story, although there will be real frost in it. The star of Yakutia is a teacher from Nigeria. In the snow and ice, he went for his loved ones – and stayed. He began to teach foreign languages, including Chinese, and fell in love with the cold. Get comfortable, let's go!
Eight years ago, Mark Babatonde moved to the cold yakutia. It happens because of love. In 2010, he plans to spend the rest of his life in China. He came there to learn the language and became a translator. I also met Natalia there. Here's what she told RIA Novosti about the big meeting:
We were introduced by friends. She doesn't speak English well, but she's friends with a Chinese man and I'm their translator. One day, her friend and Mark came to see us. We met, and then we started dating. This is in 2004. But they were officially married eight years later and were already in Yakutia.
Natalia returned to Yakutia for some time, already with a Daughter born of Mark. The parents insisted on keeping their granddaughter with them for the first time and letting the young granddaughter graduate. After settling in Harbin, Mark and Natalia took their daughter with them. The family spent the last three years of their life in China in Sanya. Later they decided to go home to Natalia.
So the young man and his family moved to the largest and coldest region of Russia. Natalia's family received her son-in-law warmly, and her parents and sisters were delighted.
The presence of a Nigerian in the village of Oi (where he lives) is a big deal. Mark immediately became acquainted with a bunch of acquaintances, and a local school opened a vacancy for him: an English and Chinese teacher. It was difficult at first because Mark only spoke English and Chinese. As a result, the children and the teacher understood each other through gestures and drawings on the blackboard. Lecture after lesson, he taught himself the language. Mark now speaks 4 languages – English, Chinese, Russian and a little Yakutia.
If the local residents quickly get used to this new hometown, Mark himself did not succeed in the end. Despite his own admission, he almost forgot that Nigeria was cold – that's plus 15 degrees. He said he adapted to the cold thanks to the felt boots.
The worst part is the cold. I'm not used to living like them, and sometimes I dress like winter in the summer.
He also became acquainted with national cuisine: he fell in love with strogenina. As his wife admitted, he still did not consider feeding on soup or eating raw foals. It's simple: in Nigeria, the first course is thick and thick – like gravy, not broth like Yakutia.
Natalia and Mark have a big family – three children. Daughter Angel-Julian was born in China, and later son Arius was born and already in Yakutia, baby Emily. The family also had business — the couple bought a plot of land in Pokrovsk and opened a grocery store there.
The Yakut Babatung people maintain contact with Mark's family in Nigeria via the Internet. When they lived in China, Mark's mother came to their daughter-in-law. This is the end of all private acquaintances. The children have not yet been to their father's hometown, but they dream of correcting this negligence in the near future.
In 2018, Babatung was granted a passport for a citizen of the Russian Federation, and this summer he joined everyone in putting out the fires raging in Yakutia. This man is not leaving his hometown because now he is just an African on the outside. Frost and the North proved that in his soul he was a true Yakutite.
