The kids inquired as to why the hills were on fire. The house we’re staying at has a fairly open view of the lava heading towards the ocean and as is creeps it burns everything in it’s path. Naturally the children are moderately concerned by the plumes of red smoke and naturally curious about it’s origin.

Today we drove to the mouth of the volcano so I could help them understand. Standing there looking into the crater, Malik uttered the distressing question: “So, is this volcano, like, active?” I think it was then that he really understood what was happening. Next came: “So what’s to stop it from just exploding or flowing wherever it wants to instead down the hill where nobody lives?” I explained to him that nothing is to stop it from doing exactly what it wants and that it could blow at any moment. That it’s flowing where nobody lives because everyone was forced to move out of the area or risk losing everything. We toured the mountain side where previous lava flows forced residents to leave. Yet we also found current residents who decided to stick it out but build their houses off the ground so that they could be hauled off in the event of new flows.

Next we toured the seismographs that monitored all the volcanoes in hopes of detecting potential earthquakes resulting in explosions and other catastrophic happenings.

Finally, we hiked deep into the woods and explored extinct lava tubes. Lava tubes form as lava leaves a point of eruption. It carves a cave through the crust of the earth and the walls sometimes display lines where the lava flow has lessened until the lava has passed but this elongated tube cave remains. With flashlights in hand we marched deep into the depths of two different lava tubes. Thankfully I remembered to attach my flash and so we were able to snap a few photos along our journey towards the center of the earth.