Saturday, September 7th
5:10am: Church bells ringing loudly
5:12am: A sound of gunfire or bombs
5:13am: My phone went off
Under the safety of my mosquito net I thought, this is it.
The church bells are a loud warning sign to tell the community that there’s an
emergency. Something awful is happening in Diriamba and we’re about to be
evacuated.
5:15am: More gunshot sounds, now one firing close to my
house and the other far away, as if in retaliation.
5:16am: My phone going off turned out to be a text from one
of my friends also wondering what is happening.
5:20am: Still in bed listening carefully. Ok, so my host
parents haven’t rushed out of their room, there are no screams, shouts, or
strange noises in the streets, and all I can hear are roosters crowing between
the bomb sounds.
5:35am: Finally pull myself out of bed luckily only 5
minutes before I had to wake up anyway.
At this point my mind was mostly eased in knowing it had to
be something normal since no one else was freaking out. But what in the world
could be happening on Saturday morning at 5am!? I walked into the kitchen to
find my host mom calmly making breakfast. I asked immediately, what is going
on? My host sister commented that she hadn’t even noticed the bomb sounds. My
mom calmly said, “Oh you must’ve been scared! Every first Saturday of the month
there is a processional of the Virgin throughout the streets of Diriamba at
dawn. Basically during every celebration here they throw those bombs. If we
went to war no one would ever know because we’re all so used to it!”
Three things came to mind: Saturday, dawn, and bombs to celebrate a religious figure. What an
interesting combination. It will definitely take a while to not jump every time
I hear a gun shot sound.
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