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After a day and a half in Antigua, you’d think I’d be used to the fireworks. The week before Christmas, and practically every man, woman and child is finding an excuse for setting the bloody things off. But this is one huge, deafening coordinated effort, and it seems to be coming from the mercado, about six blocks west of the city’s main plaza.
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Even the woman leading my walking tour – who’s lived in Guatemala’s old capital for thirty-eight years and must surely be used to fireworks at Christmas – pauses outside the cathedral’s west door and stops describing the destruction wreaked by the 1773 earthquake. As the bang-bang-bang continues to crescendo, everyone around us turns to face west. Old men heave themselves off plaza benches to amble to the roadside. The driver of a horse-drawn carriage pulls to a halt and stands in his seat. The woman guarding the orange cart on the corner forgets her post and steps into the cobblestone street. Above the trees and low-slung buildings, massive clouds of smoke chug skywards. Lights spit out from the smoke – purple, red, green, gold-white against a near-perfect blue sky. We’re witnessing an unbelievable conflagration of fireworks – and God help anyone who’s shopping at the mercado today.
The walking tour resumes, but the dozen or so people trailing the guide keep glancing toward the mercado. When we enter the cathedral, the ticket collector is hunched over a transistor radio. He shakes his head gloomily at our guide. “Todos se quemaron. All burned.”
The sound of sirens penetrates the cathedral door – ambulances transporting the wounded to hospital. I wonder if the people of Antigua will think carefully before setting off more fireworks. Though if the mercado has gone up in flames, maybe there won’t be any fireworks left to buy.
Two things I learned that week: 1. Guatemalans are a resilient people; 2. Guatemalans love an excuse to celebrate. Which, more often than not, involves fireworks.
It wasn’t until I’d waved goodbye to Antigua and was visiting the vast ruined Mayan city of Tikal that I discovered fireworks have been a part of Mayan culture for as long as anyone knows. Small wonder that today the descendants of the people who built Tikal consider a fiesta incomplete without pyrotechnics.
It turned out that no one died in the mercado fiasco, though fifty stalls were destroyed. Whether the blaze was accidental, arson, or the result of over-exuberant partiers, I never did hear. It also turned out that Antigua had a secret supply of fireworks (unless maybe they trucked them in from Guatemala City to appease the locals). Because two nights later, the routine that I’d come to expect started up again. The sound of random bombitas – some close, some farther away – enlivened the evening until the early hours. And on Christmas Eve at 10 P.M. – well, it was actually fifty minutes before schedule: I guess they couldn’t wait? – a spectacular display, aiming to rival Times Square on New Year’s Eve, was launched over the plaza. By this time I’d connected with a group of friends, and we lined the street outside our budget hotel and oohed and aahed as if fireworks were only beautiful, not destructive.
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Christmas Day, not long before noon, I’m wandering along a side lane, heading back to the hotel after searching for a shop willing to sell water and chocolate to a gringa on a feast day. Shopping bag in hand, I’m enjoying the feel of the near-noon sun on my shoulders and bare arms, and concentrating on the uneven sidewalk. Suddenly, less than a meter away, something explodes. In a doorway across the street, some locals cheer. I hurry on toward the hotel. A few doors down, the same thing happens. I can’t see what’s causing the noise, just know I want to be under cover, somewhere. As I hasten along, a youth in a dirty white shirt darts out from an archway, drops several plastic bottles onto the cobblestones, then scurries back to shelter. Seconds later, the bottles leap into the air with gunshot sound effects. Now I can hear the same sounds emanating from neighboring streets. Have all the town’s residents turned loony? Or am I the loony one, the only pedestrian in sight? Tripping over the cobbles so fast my sandals are ruined forever, I throw myself into the hotel’s courtyard and bang on the security door. When the receptionist admits me, I demand, “Que pasa – el ruido? Why the noise?”
He shrugs, points at the clock that hangs above the desk. Its hands show me three minutes past noon. “Feliz Navidad!” he says.
Did I mention that Guatemalans love their fiestas?
Copyright © 2009 Claire Morris
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