December 7th every year, Guatemala: Also a date which will live in infamy. That is, if you are a giant wooden devil, or the garbage that accumulates in someones house over a year's time. The annual date in which the lungs of everybody in Guatemala are mercilessly assaulted by toxic garbage fumes.
December 7th in Guatemala is the annual Quema del Diablo "Devil Burning" event. It is always the day before the feast of the immaculate conception, or as it is known in the particularly long winded prayer services "Fiesta del immaculada concepción de la bienaventurada virgen Maria, madre del Señor." The original purpose of the event is to clean your house of anything that might cause you to sin during these last weeks of Advent, and to burn these "devils" in the street in front of all your neighbors. Over the years it evolved into this:
Streets full of giant pillars of Satan burning in effigy.
In preparing myself for this event I'm afraid I fell prey to "build up syndrome:" A syndrome I just made up to describe the feeling when people tell you wondrous stories to build up your hopes about how awesome an event is. Hopes which are utterly destroyed when you see the actual event. In the days leading up to this devil burning ceremony everyone told me stories about the great fires and plumes of (I'm assuming sulfurous) smoke rising into the night sky. The image I had in my head was that of the picture above, giant devil statues burning to the ground. They forgot to mention that this is only in Antigua, Guatemala and in the capital. What we have in Esquipulas could be more easily summed up as "lots of fireworks, with juvenile pyromaniacs lighting small bonfires everywhere." So... 4th of July in the USA.
When I returned from my less that awe-inspiring mission to see the devil burning, I expressed my slight disappointment to a few of the monks. The Guatemalan monks I asked about this all seemed a bit sad and almost unanimously lamented that the people of Esquipulas are losing touch with their traditions and cultural heritage. However, one monk (originally from the USA) put it in a different light: He told me that the people are beginning to realize that burning plastics, furniture, and tires all through the night is very dangerous and contributes to lung cancer. I guess not all traditions should be kept. That being said, Guatemalans are not a people to give something up easily, and instead of avoiding this dangerous night, they traded this unseen and long term danger of poisonous gas for a more immediate threat of car crashes, sever burns, and death by shrapnel. It seems that one of the games is working together with your neighbors to light the fires in a maze pattern that the cars driving down the road have to swerve all around to dodge.
This can be seen here as a car and motorcycle swerve around one devil pillar after narrowly avoiding the one right behind the motorcycle (that can't be seen here)
The festivities also included throwing quite large explosives into your devil fire and watching as everyone in the street runs for cover to avoid the resulting burning shrapnel. Extra points if you can cause a car crash or knock a person off of his/her motorcycle.
This is a picture taken right after aforementioned explosions. Notice the burning garbage scattered throughout the street.
To get a good idea of this event, imagine fires all throughout the streets, cars swerving wildly, and explosions everywhere. Definitely an exciting event. The "highlight" of the night came when Willy (you might remember him from "this IS a beautiful country") and I were walking around a corner when a group of kids lit something on fire right at Willy's feet and ran the other direction. I had a flashback to all those countless hours of Goldeneye on N64, and grabbed Willy's coat to drag him alond as I ran for cover, holding my arm up to guard against the blast. I then heard a whistling, which was sure was the M80 about to go off, and looked over my shoulder to see a little whistling firecracker spinning harmlessly on the ground. At least the children got a kick out of it.
While different than I expected, the "Quema del Diablo" was definitely an exciting experience. My only regret is that my camera battery ran out right at the beginning, and I was only able to take 3 pictures. Instead of owning up to not charging the battery, I'm just going to go ahead and let the devil (bad luck) take the blame for that... after that night, I'm pretty sure he's not around to defend himself anyways.
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