By Lisa
Dixon, 2nd year MDP student
I
have been in Inari, Finland for over five weeks now, and the experience has
been great so far. As I write this, I
cannot believe that my placement is now more than half way finished and I will
soon be entering into my last month here!
I have had one main project to work on, developing the English content
for the CASLE project website. CASLE was
a one-year program in which professionals from the village of Inari and nearby
areas took an intensive Inari Sami language course in order to create new
speakers in the age group of 26-59. The
Inari Sami language, like so many other Indigenous languages is a very
endangered language and CASLE has been a big part of the revitalization of the
language.
My
partner, Heli and I began by translating interviews with the 21 Language
Masters involved in the program, this was an amazing teaching tool for me, as I
learned about the geography of the area, the Finnish experiences during WW11,
the changing realities after the war and inevitably, the decline of the Inari
Sami language. Since then we have been
busy doing more translations and setting up a big project for the month of
June, involving the students of the program creating digital stories of their
language learning experience.
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| Inari, Finland |
I’ve
also fallen in love with the beauty of Northern Finland. The scenery has been well worth the chilly
temperatures so far! This picture is a
view I see every morning on my walk to work!
Today is also the first day of the ‘midnight sun’, when the sun doesn’t
set for a period of about 2 ½ months.
I’ve
also been able to attend and be a part of different events in the
community. It is impossible to talk
about them all in this blog, but I will share one story that happened earlier
this morning! My partner, Heli also works at the Sami Radio and every Friday
does a three-hour show in the Inari Sami language along with another
broadcaster. I was interviewed this
morning and got a tour of the building! Among the topics of conversation: the
hockey game from the previous night in which Finland beat Canada, how I ended
up in Inari (which I find is always a popular question), land rights,
interesting foods in Inari, including blood sausages, and of course, the
weather!
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| Lisa Dixon being interviewed for Sami Radio |
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| Sami Radio |
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