| Fireworks in Panama |
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| Written by Matt Landau | |
| Friday, February 29 2008 | |
As a child, my highlight of vacations to new places was inescapably the assortment of things I could buy that were considered otherwise illegal or improper at home. In Germany for example, as young teenagers we'd rush to magazine stands to buy adult magazines from old men behind the counters who wore the type of smiles that read they'd been enjoying their product for many many years. In Russia, I remember buying a pack of cigarettes from a withered old woman who had a collection of packs on display out of a briefcase. The police arrived soon thereafter and the peddler woman escaped into the snowy abyss. I was only fifteen at the time and refused to put a stick of tobacco in my mouth, but it was the process of buying them that stimulated a renegade-like mentality: one founded on the principle that Russia respected teenagers like me. The USA did not. It wasn't necessary to leave the states in order to experience this freedom however, as frequent trips to the southern US would reveal the region to be as alien and exotic as voyages in Mongolia. And it was never the accent people used down there that amazed me as much as the bizarre goods they chose to sell on the side of the road. "Oh look at this one" we'd say as we drove past a curbside shed. "Looks like he's selling baby alligators. Or are those shoes?" There was never telling what they might be hawking, and as a family we took joy in stopping to investigate as often as we could. BOILED PEANUTS read the sign of one shack outside Kiawah Island. GET EM WHILE THEY'RE HOT! I remember this one specifically because I had no idea why anyone would want to boil a peanut. As it would turn out though, they were South Carolina's official state snackfood. And as it would turn out, they were delicious. Perhaps more exciting on trips to South Carolina were the fireworks stands that dotted every small town and highway road. The red white and blue signs almost always depicted stars, as if playing on the fact that buying m-80s or sparklers was truly a patriotic feat. The people working in these shops always wore confederate belts and spoke of minorities as if they were little mascots. The stores were often packed to the brim with various types of explosives, alongside large posters with Uncle Sam prohibiting, should one forget, the act of lighting a match anywhere on the premises. It would be funny, I thought to myself, to see a fireworks shop catch on fire. It would not be funny, I then made clear, to be anywhere near the shop when it did. Fireworks represented more than just patriotism to me. They embodied the forbidden and the taboo where I was from, reserved only for large national holidays under the watchful eye of a trained professional. But in South Carolina, I soon realized that any day could be a holiday and anyone, even my younger brother Simon could be a professional. Upon arriving in Panama, I quickly identified with its people thanks to a common devotion to pyrotechnics. Fireworks can be seen and heard in Panama just about any time of the year and there's really no restriction as to who can and cannot set them off. Supposedly you need a permit to do the bigger ones, and I'd never experienced and problems until the other night when several policemen approached us on the beach in Casco Viejo around three in the morning. "Was that you setting off those bombas?" they asked with analytical eyes. "What bombas?" I responded, with several roman candles sticking out from my pants in the back. "Keenan, did you hear any bombas?" If you're looking to acquire some of the best fireworks in Panama, wander yourself (with a local guide or bodyguard) into the Barrio Chino in San Felipe. There are several shops there which sell every firework package under the sun, and they're cheap. My personal favorites are the Mata Suegras (Mother-in-law Killer) and the Tumba Rancho (Shack Destroyer): they are both innocent-looking triangles wrapped in brown paper-maybe the size of an earring. But the power of these little babies is enough to send the tourists running. I'm now officially offering free firework shopping tours in Panama if, for no other reason, to replicate that first time thrill I experienced upon several years arriving on the isthmus. I take comfort in knowing, even if I don't get to set them off myself, buying fireworks in Panama is a privilege I was never exposed to at home. |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, August 11 2008 ) |
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