Thursday, January 1, 2015

Feliz Año Nuevo!

In El Salvador, New Years means fireworks. The first lane of nearly every roundabout in the city has been occupied for the past week by pop-up plastic roadside stands selling colorful explosives. There is nothing official or organized about this process. The noise begins on New Years Eve right after lunchtime, with sparklers and foot-long cylinders wrapped in newspaper and filled with confetti that explode with a spectacular BOOM. There's no official countdown or Dick Clark on the television, so sometime between 11:45pm and 12:15am the sky is filled with fireworks... the real kind you get on the 4th of July... that people set off from any convenient street corner.

I spent New Years with Bianca's family, chowing down on absurdly delicious turkey at 10pm and learning how to dance the robot from a precocious 7-year old. This morning we had "breakfast" at noon, a house gathering around cinnamon pancakes and individual omelettes. As everyone went their separate ways, for the first time in what feels like months I was alone. I left the house and began walking, turning down random streets that even within the last year, I had never noticed before. The sun was setting behind San Salvador's volcano, turning the entire sky a brilliant pink striated with purples and magentas.

The neighborhood where I live is filled with cement square homes with metal gates and chicken wire, yet beyond these "apocalypse-proofed" exteriors, inside there is always a news station or salsa music playing into the street. The walkways are filled with large-leafed palm trees and tropical flowers practically popping out of their buds, swallowing the faraway bus and car horns. When I pass people on the sidewalk... many are elderly wearing leathered skin and a stooped spine... they look at me like an animal escaped from the zoo, a gringa walking alone, unsure what to say or do. Turns out all you need is a big smile and a "buenas," and it's like cracking open a safe releasing enormous toothy grins and a surprised glee that creeps into the crows feet bordering their eyes. It reminded me that some days, all you have to do is simply be.

No comments:

Post a Comment