Fireworks Salvadoran Style

One night we went to the celebration of the 153^rd birthday of a town called Suchitoto.  People gathered in the town square for the celebrations.  The main square in Suchitoto is a charming place- a beautiful white colonial church on one side of the square with restaurants and little shops on the other three sides.  In the center of the square there is a little fountain, some nice trees, and benches where people rest or gather with friends.  The celebration started with some music and then some speeches by some important people in the town.  There was a big marching band that played a few songs.   They lit up the church with lights that changed colors every minute or two, which was really pretty.  All quite lovely.

And then without warning, fireworks started going off.  These were big, serious fireworks.  And they were being set off right there in the square- maybe about 100 feet away from me.  They probably weren’t the best quality big fireworks (or maybe it was lack of skill on the launcher’s part), so some didn’t quite launch going straight up.  A few veered off toward the marching band, some toward the crowd.  Ash and sparks from the fireworks came down and landed on people in the square.  People all over were brushing off their heads.  And the fireworks were very loud (I know fireworks usually are loud, but since they were so close they seemed even louder)! 

For the Salvadorans at this celebration this was normal.  This is apparently how Salvadorans do fireworks.  But for me and my American friends, this was anything but normal.  In fact it was quite terrifying.  When the fireworks started we immediately retreated farther away from where the fireworks were being set off, but most of the Salvadorans stayed where they were and calmly watched the fireworks.  Besides worrying about my own life and the safety of all the other people there, I was terrified that the historic WOODEN church was going to catch on fire.  This is a beautiful church that has survived some pretty big earthquakes, but I was pretty sure that this church was going to be destroyed by fireworks.

And then there was the torito pinto that came out while the fireworks were still being set off.  It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on, but we figured out there was a young man running around carrying a metal cow over his head.  A whole bunch of fireworks had been attached to the metal cow and the fireworks went off from the cow randomly.  These weren’t just little sparklers, these were some serious fireworks that were being shot off…sometimes towards the people standing around watching.   The poor person running around with the torito pinto ran into a tree and a pole- I can imagine that it’s not very easy running around carrying a metal cow over your head while it is shooting off fireworks.

That bright light you see in front of the church is the glow of the torito pinto.

Here is a YouTube video from the celebration in Suchitoto from a couple of years ago.  This video very clearly shows the insanity of the torito pinto.

I learned that the torito pinto is a pretty traditional thing in El Salvador- there’s even a really good song about it (the song in the video above is the song).  After I had witnessed the torito pinto, for the rest of the trip I kept hearing the song about the torito pinto.  I don’t remember hearing this song in my previous trips to El Salvador, but it’s possible that I did without recognizing that it was a song about a cow that shoots off fireworks.  Who would have thought that there was a metal cow that people run around with while it shoots off fireworks and that they would write a song about it.

I’m pretty sure that this firework show violated every single fireworks safety measure that would be taken in the US.  And yet as far as I know, no one was seriously injured.  Salvadorans love fireworks (they even love really loud fireworks at 5:00 in the morning as I found out one morning).  And Salvadorans are much braver than I am.  I guess they don’t have much fear.  Which is why I’m guessing they do fireworks they way they do.  It was certainly the most interesting and unique firework show I’ve ever witnessed.