Pacaya!

This morning I saw in our local paper a little article about a Central American volcanic eruption--Pacaya, near Guatemala City. A dear family friend lives near there (!) so of course alarm bells went off in our heads...went on line to find out a bit more...sent e-mails and still waiting to hear back...

The ash and sand have covered the capital city; like an echo of Iceland's recent eruption, Pacaya's activity has closed the airport, one of Central America's busiest:

(above cartoon from today's Prensa Libre,

one of Guatemala City's major newspapers...

rough translation: the little Guatemalan volcano saying

to its Icelandic 'big brother' :

"did you see that?--I can do it too...)

As if the volcanic activity isn't enough, the first Pacific tropical storm of the season has slammed into Guatemala and El Salvador, adding to the damage...The government of Guatemala has declared a two-week national state of emergency...

A hard bargain, living in volcanically-abundant Central America--the mountains are home to some of the most fertile farmland in the Americas, and population pressures push people ever further up the slopes...

Pacaya was dormant for most of a century until the mid-1960's; since then it's been periodically active...

When my wife and I were last in Guatemala in 2006, we stayed with a dear family friend who lives not too far from Pacaya. Below, a view of the steaming volcano from the highway near her town:

...and this view, from her neighborhood; abundant evening steam from the summit:

Several years before, on our first trip to Guatemala in 2003, S. and I ended up hiking up Pacaya...in sandals--a long story, involving miscommunication and a last minute change-in-plans on the part of our local 'guides'.


We were miffed at first, thinking of our comfy protective hiking-boots, sitting lonely and unused back in town as we trudged up the pumice-strewn trail...But the views from the summit, (2552 m., 8373 ft), even on a cloudy day--the roof of the world! Totally worth the scraped toes...

(The volcano in the distant background is the Volcán de Agua, on the other side of which is the city of Antigua; that peak--3,760 m (12,336 ft)--has been blessedly inactive since the mid-16th century.)

S. jokes that in the photo below, her Pacific-NW-complexion glows like neon against the black sand below the crater's summit...

Below--the view from Pacaya down towards the farmland of the Departamento de Escuintla:

...such a beautiful country, blessed and cursed by its volcanoes...

...hoping to hear back from our friends soon...

(So far, in addition to the airport closure, about 1800 people have been evacuated from villages on the slopes of Pacaya, and three people (including a journalist) have been killed directly from the eruption...And then from the subsequent tropical storm, 13 confirmed deaths, but 74 thousand evacuees...)

Cha-yu--libertad, liberté: summer!

...another school-year has come to its end here in Tucson. Today was my last day 'with kids;' tomorrow there's the turning in of grades, classroom-tidying-up, etc...There will be some committee-work this summer, but without students. So: freedom!

One of my summer-goals is to dive back into my study of Korean, which got put on the backburner this past school-year, since I had other teacher-certification courses to work on while teaching full-time. My linguistic frustration in Korean is that for years now I've been on a 'plateau'--the ability to have 'real conversations' remains elusive, whereas random vocabulary words will pop into my head unbidden. Thus, 'cha-yu.'

Vive les vacances!
I've been teaching high-school for the better part of a decade, now, and I've never 'needed' summer more than this year. I'll like my job (kids) again, come August...

Earlier this month, my mother came for a visit--a 'business-trip,' this time, since she ended up buying a house. With it being a buyer's market right now, and since she plans to retire here in a couple of years, this plan seemed to make sense: Mother buys house, then son and daughter-in-law paint and 'take care' of it (aka rent) until Mom finally moves Out West. (Also, this means--gasp--we're putting down ROOTS here in Tucson...)

So--another summer of moving. June will be populated by paintbrushes, dropcloths, and cardboard boxes in a U-haul. Logistically logical, this moving-plan...but bittersweet: adios to having Sabino Canyon as 'our backyard.' Alas...

The new place does have many perks--more space, a neighborhood salt-water pool, and a walled backyard where we'll be able to grow vegetables! (Here, where we've spent the past year, squirrels and javelinas have eaten everything on our patio--except for geraniums and rosemary.) And for morning runs, there is a dry-riverbed nearby--really, it's prettier than it sounds...And Sabino Canyon will only be a ten-minute drive away... 

So, before we move, I'm trying to enjoy our mountain backyard daily. Yesterday afternoon, after work, I biked into the canyon with my camera...
Plenty of water, still, in the canyon--some evening reflections:

...evening light--fun to 'see in color' and 'in b&w.' 
 No more papers to grade tonight, so time to play in the digital darkroom...

...and while doing this,
I remembered a photo from when we were in Antigua, Guatemala, four (already!) years ago:

(Original color, sepia, b&w, negative: Hokusai's numerous views of Mt. Fuji inspire me...

The Volcán de Agua and the colorful architecture

of Antigua loom ever-present in my mind...)

...and now, as the 100-degree reality of Tucson's summer edges closer,

 a bit of Washington-dreaming,

with a volcano of the glaciated sort: 

 

...now: must be "accent-less" in AZ if you're going to teach...

As if AZ's public image in the rest of the country weren't bad enough already,
here's something else:

===================================================
Arizona Goes After Teachers With Accents: If not 'fluent,' they can't teach English learners 
    (from this article on newser.com)
 
       Arizona is already under fire for its controversial new immigration law, and now this: Schools in the state are being forced to fire or reassign some teachers who speak English with an accent. Teachers who aren’t deemed fluent can’t be in classrooms where students are still learning English, meaning many veteran teachers are taking classes to improve their English—and if that doesn’t work, facing a move to a higher grade where English learners are fewer; about 12.5% of the state's public-school students are considered "English Language Learners."

       Some of the pronunciation problems the Department of Education notes: violet is “biolet” and think is “tink.” While one principal agrees “teachers should speak grammatically correct English,” she doesn’t see why accents should be punished. “This is just one more indication of the incredible anti-immigrant sentiment in the state,” one professor tells the Wall Street Journal. Ironically, Arizona hired hundreds of Spanish-speaking teachers, many of them recruited from Latin America, in the 1990s to teach bilingual education.

===================================

Hmm.....
So, who gets to decide how much accent, and what type of accent, is 'too much'?

When I moved to GA during my elementary school years, it took me several months to finally be able to systematically and effortlessly decipher my teachers' southern accents.
So--would they not be able to teach in AZ today?

On my drive home from work today, this commentary on NPR about AZ's new accent-targeting policy caught my ear...Listen to it and see what you think.

Intuitively, as a language-teacher myself, I know that good pronunciation is imperative on the part of a teacher...but with such a wide variety of naturally occuring and comprehensible accents, it's a slippery slope, once an agency takes it upon itself to be a 'speech-judge'--a slippery slope leading to institutionalized approval of racism and prejudice...


For more information, here's a recent Wall Street Journal article about this topic.

Watch what you say and how you say it, evidently...

Is the AZ Dept. of Education going to have to start a state-wide "My Fair Lady"-style crackdown? Good-intentions, perhaps, but TERRIBLE p.r....(Mississippi, Alabama--relax a bit, while AZ takes over as 'national-butt-of-joke'-state.)

And again--the slippery slope...
We need to add 'accentism' to our vocabulary of possible ways to discriminate, no?


Ah, Arizona: I love the landscape, climate, food...
...but alas--the human, political element; ay, there's the rub....


The saguaros are blooming now.
Enjoy. Just be careful how you pronounce...

From smeared beans to future boycotts:
Arizona in the news around the world...

Unless you've been under a rock this past week, you've probably heard more than you'd ever think you would about Arizona's new immigration laws. Opinions abound...and AZ's image is even more tarnished...AZ-bashing on late-night TV and in newspaper columns has been de rigueur for the past week.

A local anecdote--a Hispanic student of mine said that when he went to the Swap Meet (aka 'the Mexican Mall') this past weekend, 'there were, like, NO Mexicans there.' The state capitol in Phoenix has been defaced with swastikas--smeared on with refried beans. Already, the fear sets in...

The government of Mexico has issued an official travel warning to its citizens planning to travel to The Grand Canyon State. The Washington Post has this article: "Seeking the best way to boycott Arizona over immigration law."

Taxis in Mexico City are posting signs in their windows: "We don't give service to gringos from Arizona!" (more from this reuters website...)

I appreciated this balanced article in yesterday's New York Times:
"Welcome to Arizona, Desert Outpost of Contradictions."
...and then this: "For Migrants, New Law Is Just Another Challenge"

A local perspective, Wednesday's political cartoon in the Tucson paper:

 
...Here is a link to a videoclip (in English) from a French-language Montréal newspaper:
click here

...and (if you read the language of one-third of Arizona's residents), here is a column in Spain's El País newspaper: "De Italia a Arizona."

...and just one more link to an international perspective, si vous lisez le français: a blog from France's Libération.com. (The commentary at the end of the posting is fascinating...)

====================================

On a lighter, brighter note:

The brittlebush is in full bloom...

...So, if you can just ignore the ugly political realities, AZ really is beautiful.

Please don't boycott your friends who live here. ;-)

This past Saturday,

S. and I went for a hike in a part of 'our backyard' where she had never been--

Seven Falls in Bear Canyon--an 8-mile hike parallel to Sabino Canyon:

...still flowing strong...and we even had snow in the mountains last Friday--unusually late for us...and we've yet to hit 90 degrees this year...this will be the first time in many years that the thermometer will have stayed under that mark until the month of May...

But the heat will be here soon...
===========================================
...and also, in Thursday's paper here in Tucson:

Published again! Another semi-vain surprise to go with my morning coffee...(This is kind of bad, actually--I'm beginning to 'expect' a published photo when I open the Foothills section on Thursdays...)

...and in this Thursday's morning paper:

...a scene from earlier this month at Catalina State Park,

wildflowers in this glorious spring desert,

published in this morning's Tucson paper.

(...now, if only I were paid...)

via cell-phone in Sabino Canyon...


...went for another evening bike-ride in Sabino Canyon tonight after work--that magic hour around sunset...

A few cell-phone-camera views:

...the hills around the entrance to the canyon are blazing yellow with brittlebush in bloom...

...at the upper end of the canyon, looking up the saguaro-studded slopes...

...after the steep ride up, ahh, the sweet view down;

but now with the warmer days, and the creek still running--

as soon as the sun goes down, riding downhill feels at times

like riding through airborne needles as the insects
collide on your face and arms--better keep your sunglasses on

to prevent being blinded by bugs...

yellow yellow everywhere...and a bit of pink

April is glorious in the Sonoran desert...entire hillsides covered in yellow: the brittlebush and desert marigold are in bloom; the poppies are past their peak, but new color is taking their place...

The slopes seem landscaped--the trails are lined with brittlebush; the yellow flowers seem to have been planted around each saguaro and mesquite tree...heliotrope, chicory, fairy-duster sprinkled in...

And in our neighborhood the acacia trees are in bloom--perfume in the air from the yellow 'puffs'.

I had my cell-phone with me on a bike ride in Sabino Canyon a couple of evenings ago, so a few phone-camera shots:

...and the ocotillo are in bloom now also...

==============================

As for the 'pink'--this past Sunday I ran the Susan Komen Race for the Cure 5k again! Last year was my first...A friend of mine, who'd once been a firefighter, said that firefighters are required to be able to run a mile-and-a-half in 12 minutes. So--an 8-minute/mile pace. I thought that should be a reasonable goal for me for this year...and I did it! Yes, I know, not stellar...but for someone who never really got into running until the age of 33--I'm happy. S. came along as a spectator...and wants to do it next year...Anyone else want to plan to come down for it too! This year there were over 12000 participants...