It's hard to say: "Don't worry about the volcano."

This is a picture we took last Thursday of our local volcano, Turrialba.



You can see the fumes spitting out of the top. It's a bit unsettling.

I've never lived next to a volcano, nor anywhere even remotely near one. This one, however, is about 30km from our doorstep.

In the past few weeks, it has become increasingly active, spouting fumes and small rocks from two (small) new craters, and the latest news is that we may see lava soon.

In February 2007, for the first time since 1866, Turrialba woke up and shot ash about 2000m into the sky. It hit the "Sleep" button, but the alarm went off again on January 6th of this year, and has remained active ever since.

The good news is that the mountain isn't bulging at all, so it is not going to blow any time soon. Apparently, before a Mount.-St.-Helens-style explosion, the whole mountain stretches a bit, and Turrialba isn't showing any signs of that.

In fact, in the time between the picture above, and now, we've passed within a few kilometers of another local volcano, Arenal, that spits out lava constantly. Not only are the lava flows not considered dangerous, but they have been a huge economic boon to the entire community... It's one of Costa Rica's most popular and most developed tourist destinations.

Turrialba, then, is not likely dangerous to Candice and myself, but what about the people we've grown to love here?

People like Mila, a milk producer whose farm is located on the volcano, within a couple of kilometers from the top. She can't leave her farm because her cows have to be milked (twice a day), but she and her family and her cows are potentially sucking in harmful gases all day. In additional, they just closed the school because it's considered too dangerous, the very same school that her children attend, and is currently providing refuge to a number of families that have been forcefully evacuated from their homes (that were closer to the top). Not to mention the impending threat of temporarily or permanently evacuating themselves.

People like our Costa Rican "parents", Mecho and Macha, who have lived in this community for all of their lives. Imagine being (give or take) 70 years old, and thinking that the friendly giant you've known for all of your life may be going a little bit "loco", and may yet force you from your home.

And the youth we've been working with, thinking that in the long lives they have ahead of them, they'll be living next to a ticking time bomb.

So am I worried about the Turrialba volcano?
No, not for me and my family, in the time we have left here.
But: Yes, definitely and absolutely, for the Costa Rican families that have adopted us, who won't be coming back with us to safe-and-sound Canada in April, and will continue to live in the shadow of this potential monster.