The Sounds of a Colombian Christmas

Imagine this: you’re finally settling into bed after a long day. You close your eyes and your mind begins to wonder as you drift into the land of dreams. You’re not quite sleeping yet, but you’re approaching the threshold between reality and the world in our minds. BAM! All of a sudden a bomb explodes outside of your apartment and you’re violently shocked back into your bedroom.

I’m certain you’ve probably had an experience close to this and as soon as you realize it was a half-dream you can snuggle back into your thoughts.  I’m also fairly certain that you don’t live in Colombia in December.

This exact scenario happened the other night – except the explosion wasn’t a random neuron accidently firing while trying to relax. There really was an explosion. My eyes shot open and I pictured guerilla fighters taking over my city. Within 2 minutes another explosion went off. These were the ensuing thoughts, “I’m going to die. They are throwing bombs. Oh wait, Good thing I’m on the 4^th floor. They won’t get me up here.”

Following those thoughts I managed to slow my breathing, my pulse soon dropped, and I fell back asleep. Clearly I have a difficult time thinking logically when I first wake up. The next morning I decided that upon hearing bombs, one should not shrug it off and go back to sleep. Maybe I should call my portero. Maybe I should at least look outside and see what is happening. Maybe I should make a shelter and hide under my mattress so when they break in to kidnap me I won’t be found? I’m thinking option 1 or 2 would be best.

So the next day at school I had a huge story for everyone: There were a series of explosions outside of my apartment last night!!! Ah!!! My students were not impressed and kindly explained to me: Meese, don’t you know that we begin celebrating Christmas at the beginning of December and everyone lights fireworks all the time.

 Fireworks, they call these things FIREWORKS? No. Fireworks usually have a visually appealing light show that accompanies large blasts. Not these “fireworks”. These are bombs.

I’m starting to get used the sound now. Every night there are about 8-10 of explosions.  I still scream sometimes in shock (like when someone sneaks up and scares you) and the jolting out of sleep is inevitable, but at least I have some reason now: Christmas in Colombia means celebrating with loud noises.