Looming large in the distance at 2829m, I stand tall over a small village. About 1,000 people live in the fertile plane that surrounds my peak, though the vineyards and fields that grow corn, beans and fruits are tattooed with smaller peaks and lava flows of varying age. I may appear quiet at the moment, but I most recently erupted in 1995 destroying much of the arable land and sending villagers fleeing for shelter elsewhere. The remote village is surrounded by sheer faces of what was believed to be a larger peak of 3,500m that crumbled into the ocean thousands of years ago. Far below the crater, there are villages and small cities around the island with a population totaling almost 40,000 inhabitants. The 40,000 of my island, named for a particularly violent eruption in 1680, make up only about one fifth of the nation’s population. I am the fourth…