Catchup Part 1 (Volcano and Census)

BBC picture- I'm further away, but this is what I see.

 No, I have not been buried in lava. Only grad school applications (worse?). But now 5 out of 6 "submit" buttons have been hit, I'm down a few hundred $ in application fees, and ready to start typing about something other than future research plans. Before I fill you in on personal news, here are two news-worthy things from Ecuador that have happened in the past month:

<-- Volcan Tunguraha began erupting again in late November. I mentioned Tungurahua, which is about an hour from my house, in this pre-eruption post a month ago (see third picture). Although Ambato has not been evacuated, living in the shadow of an eruption means the city is intermittently showered in volcanic ash. One day it actually appeared to be snowing. Everyone here warns ominously that you should wear a mask (volcanic ash is filled with toxins), but no one does.

City of Latacunga- "Volcanic Threat Zone" signs

One night, my landlord brought me outside to see red lava glowing in the distance. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a mythical land. Occasionally I can hear the volcano gurgling. In Quichua, Tunguri means "throat" and Rahua means "fire." So Tungurahua... "throat of fire." The gurgling is real.

This sticker proves your house has been census'd.

Moving on. Sunday November 28, Ecuador administered its National Census. This was not ANYTHING like the U.S. Census. On Sunday the 28th, between the hours of 7am-5pm, no one in the entire country of Ecuador was allowed to move. Seriously. By law, you had to be in your (or a) house, and were not allowed to leave. The logic? Everyone had to be counted, and how can you count people if they're all moving around? All commerce and public/private offices shut down, with the exception of police/hospital. People caught on the street were arrested.

Every Ecuadorian high school student was trained and assigned about 10 houses to administer the census to door-to-door. Two very frightened 15 year old girls "censo'd" me-- I was the first house of the morning, and took the census interview in my PJs. The picture below from the national press-- it's President Correa being administered the census in his house. How lucky is the student who was assigned the President's block?!

Random kid administering census to the President in his home

The census itself was a bizarre 50+ question long behemoth of a questionnaire with many development-oriented questions like "how many light fixtures are in your house?" and a slew of  racial categorization questions (which are complete BS for reasons I'll explain later). High school teachers and state employees monitored the streets to ensure that high school students were not kidnapped while they take the census. Most people invite their high school students inside their house. This method of administering the census would NEVER work in our country for sooo many reasons. But I kind of liked it.

PS- If I ever take a month break from blogging again, I have 3 wonderful Fulbright ETA counterparts in Ecuador, and they all blog too: Chandra, Lindsay, and Amanda.