Fireworks in Antigua

July 25th is an important holiday in Antigua, as it is the feast day for Antigua's patron saint. I don't know anything about this saint or what it means but they do have a weekend long celebration with parades, bands and outdoor concerts. All of these were quite pleasant, but what I found most exciting were the fireworks.

Not surprisingly, safety standards here are different than they are in the States. The rockets were shot from a spot no more than twenty feet from the crowd and often rained multicolored sparks on the folks below. I myself got bonked on the head by the cardboard remnants of one rocket (or perhaps someone threw a rock at me – not sure). In addition to skyrockets, there is a fellow who runs around on the ground with fireworks shooting out of a contraction on his back. Basically, it looks he's humping around a burning doghouse. Lights flare out in all directions as he runs around. Sometimes he zig zags through the crowd forcing people to scatter. I asked a local about this, who acknowledged that such a practice was dangerous but that you simply had to get out of the way. She did offer that small children might be ill equipped to dodge stray rockets.