Happy New Year!

The new year here is rung in by fireworks and firecrackers – a lot of them!

The whole month of December it was very common to hear fireworks and firecrackers going off, and this activity escalated steadily until it reached its peak on December 31^st. Shortly before midnight Vanny and I met up with a few other friends and set off to find a good vantage point to watch the action. We drove to the main street running through our village, then parked in a safe place and took in the excitement.

Now, a fireworks display here is not carefully planned and coordinated, then executed in a large open space away from crowds. Oh no, here anyone can shoot off fireworks anywhere he wants – in his backyard and in the middle of the street seem to be very popular locations.

Besides the typical fireworks that shoot up into the sky and burst out into blossom, there were many...(I’m not really sure what to call them)...extreme firecrackers. These are small sticks that are lit then thrown into the street or into your neighour’s yard, where they repeatedly flash a brilliant light for several seconds before exploding with a terrific boom. At first these seemed to be tossed quite randomly, mostly into the street, but after a while two groups of young men, one on each side of the street, began lobbing them at each other. When one landed near the group, everyone scattered. After the explosion they regrouped and retaliated.

Meanwhile, there was still a continuous stream of traffic driving up and down the street, through the (at times) thick smoke from all the explosions. Drivers had to be alert and motorbikes frequently stopped in the road to wait for a cracker to explode before continuing their journey.

The edge of the street was lined with people – not just teenage boys, but mothers, small children (some of whom were also tossing firecrackers, but mostly weaker ones), and grandparents were out too. I suppose it would have been quite impossible to sleep through it, even if they wanted to.

We stayed and watched until some time after 1 am, when we met up with some other friends and went out to eat.

On New Year’s Day we went to church (but not the 5 am service!), then later in the day went out visiting and eating until late at night, like we did for Christmas, and did yet more visiting and eating on Jan. 2^nd.

I’m thankful for the new friends God has brought into my life in the past year, for His enabling and help every day, and for His faithfulness. And I can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2015!