YES!?there is no picture. Because this post is about telling stories with words. Yours. This is your chance to speak your mind about the Hill.

Tumamoc: People and Habitats has received funding from the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Heritage Grant Program to develop road-side interpretive materials for visitors. The first stage of that project is a short questionnaire that staff is asking random walkers to respond to at different times of day.

The purpose of the survey is to gain an understanding of the perceptions, sense of attachment to the place, and knowledge about environment, among Tumamoc visitors. It’s important that the educational? materials we develop start with the visitors, and contain content that resonates with what people already know or have wondered about while walking the Hill. The idea is to enhance engagement with the place in an informal setting. So knowledge gained here is focused on encouraging a respectful and enriching relationship with Tumamoc.

When I spent time in Malaysia in the late 90s and early 2000s, I learned an old Malay saying, “TAK KENAL, TAK CINTA.” It’s a rich idea using just three words, and hard to translate. Literally it’s “Not know, not love,” but we would say something like, you can’t love something until you know it. Don’t know much?don’t love much either. With deeper knowledge comes truer love.

Anyways, that’s my attitude about educational signs.

I’m putting a link to the survey, a 2-page text file (.rtf, 10.7 kb), below. Clicking on it, (depending on your browser) should open a dialog box so you can open the file, decide where to download it to your computer, or cancel the whole thing and remain silent. You have the right.

Download the:

Tumamoc Hill Visitor Survey

The easiest way to complete the survey would be to type right into the page and attach it to an email to: paulmirocha@email.arizona.edu

The survey is originally designed to be completed in person at a particular time of day, so imagine you are on one of your most typical or ideal walks up the Hill and a Tumamoc docent is interviewing you and writing your answers down on a clip board. Please do this within the next two weeks if you can.

Thanks for sharing your valuable insights. Anything you would like to share helps Tumamoc.