ON THE VOLCANO

On the precipice, I try to shield myself from the sharp volcanic rock and biting cold. I sit on a pillow, athletic pants under jeans, a t-shirt, flannel, hoodie and raincoat zipped up to my chin; a sleeping bag wrapped around my shoulders and legs.

The three of us look down at the lava exhaling massive steam clouds. Red rivers stream across the lake and in patches fiery orange lava erupts in vertical streams. Most of the sky is blocked by the steam, but tilting my head back all the way I can see the ocean blue of the night sky and the half crescent moon pulsing through the shifting clouds.

Inhaling noxious methane, shivering under five layers, pricked by jagged rocks there is still nowhere on earth I would rather be.

Yet some things are inescapable.

They were German, a year or two younger than me, working for an NGO in Uganda. One with red hair like me bears a striking resemblance to Pippi Longstocking. The other has a gentle face and blond hair done up in dreads that, by her telling, were shoddily braided and falling apart.

“I think it’s the education system — but most Ugandans don’t think critically,” one says.

“Especially when it comes to church they just go along with whatever they’re told,” the other agrees.

“One guy told me his heroes were his mom, Jesus and Hitler.”

“It’s crazy, so many people love Hitler there.”

“Even in Germany there are racists now.”

“It’s scary to think only 2% of the population resisted the Nazis.”

“A lot of people really didn’t know what was going on though.”

It goes on: genocide this, genocide that. They bring up Bosnia. I mention that the atrocities there paled in comparison to the Holocaust.

“It doesn’t matter. Genocide is genocide.”

“It matters,” I say. “The goal of genocide is to wipe out a people. The Germans nearly destroyed the Jews of Europe.”

“It’s true,” she pauses. “There are hardly any Jews in the cities there now.”

“The whole Jewish countryside,” I say.

“But Poland, Russia, lots of Jewish villages are still there, right?”

“Some Jews went back to them after the war. Their neighbors attacked them,” I say.

“They left?”

“Mostly for America, and Israel.”

“Is-ra-el,” she says slowly, as if learning a new word; the Good Progressive in her clashes with German guilt. “Israel’s an interesting country.”

“Israel’s an interesting country,” I agree, tensing and staring more intently at the lava half a mile below us.