Disasters, Natural and Otherwise

Tungurahua

There is an active volcano close to Ambato called Tungurahua (not surprisingly, it is the reason why the province that Ambato is located in is named Tungurahua). It has been erupting recently and almost every day that I have looked at it there has been dark smoke coming out from the top.

On Tuesday during our second classes, me and my friend Caitlin (who teaches at the same place I do) noticed that we could see lava coming out of it from my classroom window. We oohed and aahed for a good fifteen minutes while my class remained largely unimpressed, clearly jaded from years living in a country peppered with volcanoes.

We started our classes like normal, but about two-thirds of the way through Caitlin came walking down the stairs with her class. She explained that her students were going to take her someplace closer to the volcano so she could get a better look. My students overheard her and, in their usual enthusiasm to do anything but work, convinced me that our class should go as well.

I figured I might never get another chance to see a volcano erupt again, so I ended class thirty minutes early and jumped in one of my student's cars to drive off to a closer place with a better view of the volcano.

I can't remember the name of the nearby town we drove to, but it was about thirty minutes away from Ambato in the direction of Tungurahua and we got an awesome view. It was very dark and we could barely even see the outline of the volcano. However, lava was shooting into the air and falling down onto the slope of the volcano, which made it visible and clearly defined the shape of the mouth before the lava cooled again.

We got out of the car and we could even hear the volcano roaring. Even though we were still a good distance from the volcano, the roaring was loud and it sounded just like a ten second long thunder clap.

Since we were closer at that point, my students were equally impressed with the volcano as I was. I asked about how often it erupts like that and they said the last time it happened was four years ago. I didn't have a camera on me since I wasn't planning on going to the volcano when I left for my classes that afternoon, but I'm glad I got to be there in person to see a volcano explode since it apparently doesn't happen very often and I had never seen anything interesting happen with a volcano before (I once climbed an inactive volcano in Mexico, but the only thing I remember is spending the night in a wet sleeping bag and hearing my friend brag about how he took a dump off a cliff).

Now that the volcano has been erupting, ash will start falling. Ambato may or may not be affected by the ash depending on which way the wind blows, but someone told me the other day that they are getting ash from the volcano in Guayaquil, which is a city several hours away from Ambato. I also read in the newspaper that on farms near the volcano, the ash has ruined crops.

I have been told that Tungurahua is of little serious threat to Ambato and the safety of its citizens, so I guess a dusting of volcano ash is a small price to pay to get to see eruptions and not have to worry about suffering death by lava.

What Was That?

Two weeks ago I went to the movies with my class to make up a class I missed earlier. We went to go see the only movie playing in English (you know, since we were making up an English class). Unfortunately, the movie was horrendous. It was one of those movies that makes me think about how many people from so many different parties have to agree that the plot of a movie is good for it to get made and make it to the theaters, and then how an unnatural disaster such as the movie I saw could have possibly made it through the gauntlet.

(FYI, the movie was called 100 Feet. I would later find out that part of the reason why it was so awful was because it was a straight to television movie that premiered on Sci-Fi in 2008. Why it was showing in regular movie theaters in Ecuador two years later is beyond me.)

Watching a horror movie that made me cry laughing was not the only disaster of the night. I was in one of my student's cars with Caitlin and we were headed to the movie theater. There are a ton of homeless dogs walking walking around Ambato, and one of them ran in the middle of the street right as we were passing by. We ran over the dog and it scared the hell out of everyone. The car was leaking some kind of oil when we stopped to check the damage, but I'm pretty sure it still made out better than the dog, who I'm confident went to doggy heaven right after he hit the bumper.

I Don't Speak Spanish!

One of my favorite games to play in Ecuador has been to act like I don't speak a word of Spanish when people try to talk to me, and then to listen to what they say about me when they are convinced that I don't understand anything they are saying.

The other day two little kids came into my room in between classes and started trying to talk to me in Spanish. I just kept telling them in English that I am an English teacher and I don't speak Spanish and they got so confused.

They were asking me for candy and became very frustrated that I didn't understand their requests. One kid asked his friend "How come he doesn't speak like us?" and "Why does he speak so ugly?"

I guess I never really thought about it before, but a lot of little kids probably don't realize that there are many different languages that people speak. I suppose these children didn't realize I was speaking another language and that's why they kept on trying to communicate with me even though I made it clear that I didn't understand them.

Kids are so stupid.


Christmas Time in Ecuador

Since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here in Ecuador, there is no rule about when it is acceptable to start putting up Christmas decorations. The Christmas trees went up in many places last month, but my host family just finished putting decorations in our house.

The main event seems to be the nativity scene in our living room. It looked fine to me at a glance, but today I took a closer look and noted a couple of problems with the historical accuracy of the setup.

Gifts of gold, an algebra book, and teacups.

The first problem I noticed was with the Three Wise Men. I'm not a biblical scholar, but I'm pretty sure two of the Wise Men weren't a schoolboy and a family of anthropomorphic bears having a tea party.

My second problem with the nativity was the selection of animals present in the manger. Again, it's been a while since the last time I read the Bible, but I'm confident that there is nothing in the Gospels about elephants, giraffes, zebras, and moose witnessing the birth of baby Jesus. Regardless of its questionable historical accuracy, I like my host family's "African safari" interpretation of the nativity scene better than that lame drummer boy nonsense.



Grammar Talk

Language is interesting because people seem to learn it very differently depending on their age and whether it is their first language or a second language. For instance, I am a native English speaker and I can therefore use the language effortlessly. Just because I can use the language well, however, does not mean that I always understand why English works the way it does.

Sometimes it is frustrating to be in class and not have a good answer for why grammar works a certain way, but I find that when I ask people questions about Spanish grammar they often are equally clueless about why they use language the way they do.

For instance, the other day I asked my host family about the difference between two different Spanish words that both translate as "crunchy" in English. "Easy", my host father said, "X is used to describe crunchy foods and Y is used to describe crunchy objects." I then pointed out that my crunchy peanut butter said Y on the box. "Hmmm, well then I have no idea."

Another time I asked the students in my class about an utterance I overheard the previous day.* I asked them which verb the pronoun in the sentence was a part of. At first they were completely off track and told me the pronoun was a verb. They then quickly agreed that it was a pronoun, but then they were split about which verb it belonged to. After a minute of back and forth one girl wasn't able to explain the grammar, but was able to give another example proving which verb it was a part of.

Moral of the story: learning/teaching a foreign language is a bitch.

El Doctor Surasi

Next week my father is slipping into his jogging suit, strapping on his fanny pack, and coming out to Ecuador to visit me for two weeks. He's been working hard to perfect his Spanish before he gets here (read: listens to "Learn Spanish in 30 Minutes a Day" on his way to work) so I hope I can show him a good time and take him lots of interesting places while he is here.

Word got around that my dad was coming from the U.S. and I have again received numerous requests for North American goods. The best one so far came from my student who, after learning that my dad is a Urologist, asked if he could get a vasectomy from my dad while he is in Ambato. After hearing this, that request for $60 worth of Orbit gum seems quite reasonable in retrospect.


*For anyone who speaks Spanish and is interested in the debate, the utterance in question was, "Se acaba de nublar." My question was whether the pronoun "se" belongs to the verb "acabar" or "nublar". One student finally demonstrated that the pronominal verb must be "nublarse" because people say "Acaba de llover" and no pronoun is needed because in that case "llover" isn't pronominal.