The jungle rose around me like a fortress of tree and stone. Through the canopy breaks I glimpsed the volcano’s ever-present plume of smoke drifting up, up, into the sky. After a while, I detected the smell of a campfire. It wove into my hair and clothes, pulling me forward until I heard a faint hammering noise. The trees opened ahead into a clearing. I pushed aside the high grass and found myself on the edge of a village. I immediately covered my nose. The smell of smoke only thinly covered an overpowering stench of rotting food and dirty animals. A few sloppy thatched huts sat at the village’s edge, with dirt paths running between them. Big, ugly rats dug through piles of decaying food. One hissed as I passed. I peeked inside a hut’s doorway and glimpsed a few signs of life: a wooden branch shaped into a plow, a tattered cloth pooled in a corner, shriveled onions drying in the rafters. The pounding began again, making me jump. It wasn’t hammering, I realized, but drumming. As I moved closer, I heard chatter and grunts.
