I was happy to land a job at Mt. Ruapehu, so I could stay in New Zealand for a few extra months, especially when so many backpackers told me how competitive these jobs were. Backpackers work all over the country in the summer, but in winter, there are only three towns that employ new workers. I was one of the few that would be able to earn money here over the winter.
But when I arrived on the mountain, my staff training session included safety hazard preparation and taught me the language of volcanic eruptions: lahars, ash clouds, flying rocks, avalanches.
I quickly learned that Mt. Ruapehu’s last eruption was 2007, and that it usually erupted once every five years. “So we’ll be working and snowboarding on an active volcano?” I exclaimed to Abe. “Well, yeah, most mountains we ski on are volcanoes,” he said nonchalantly. But not volcanoes that erupted in 2007.
I talked to a few people in town about my fears; most people in New Zealand are used to talking about natural disasters as a possible occurrence especially with the recent Christchurch earthquakes fresh in their minds. Both the induction presentations and the townspeople assured me that alarm systems were in place, so that in the event of a disaster, we would be forewarned.
I shared with one of my co-workers, Chelsea, what I had learned about the alarm systems. “Besides the monitoring of seismic activity, safety personnel measure the temperature of the crater lake at the top of the mountain. Every time an eruption is imminent, the temperature rises in the lake, so they can warn us.” Chelsea worked on Mt. Ruapehu last season too, so she had heard these explanations before. “Yeah, but the temperature began rising a few months ago, so some people are worried.” Ok, now I was one of those people.
The last speaker at my staff induction was a Maori community leader. He wanted to teach the foreign staff about the history of the land where we were working and how to pronounce the Maori names we would talk about with customers. The Turoa (Too-row-a) ski field was located on Mt. Ruapehu (Roo-a-pay-hoo), and the town where we lived at the base was called Ohakune (Oh-ha-koo-nay). But more importantly, he wanted to teach us why Mt. Ruapehu is sacred to Maoris and lauded as a World Heritage Site for its natural and historical significance.
He told us that Maoris use myths as metaphors to explain everything. The myth they use to explain the creation of New Zealand is that a fisherman pulled the land out of the sea. I heard that myth all over New Zealand. But I hadn’t realized that the myth is perpetuated to remind people of the scientific formation of New Zealand, land coming up out of the water from volcanic eruptions and land masses breaking apart and moving around like fish in the sea.
He called the mountain koroua, or grandfather in Maori, and he spoke about how throughout history, many groups of people feel great wonder around mountains. The mountain’s presence is breath-taking, and the land surrounding the mountain is fertilized by the mineral-rich volcanic eruptions that flowed through the valleys for hundreds of years. We live beside koroua, and we respect him. Grandfather is much older than any of us, and he will be around for much longer.
I don’t know why, but this settled my mind. Rationally, I should still be afraid to live so close to a volcano. But after listening to the Maori leader’s presentation, I feel at peace. Maoris call the mountain koroua to show respect and to pass down the myths explaining the truths of living in our world. We are small individuals living on a vast planet we do not always understand. But the more we learn, the more we can try to prepare ourselves and appreciate the wonder of every process in the natural world. And maybe that’s all of the comfort people need to live here.
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