Each day at school we have a 30 minute break from 10 - 10:30. There's always coffee and hot tea, as well as, various breads for snacking. Today we were sitting on the first level of the school talking with a few others students when were heard a strange noise. It sounded like the normal fireworks - except didn't stop as it generally does after a few seconds. In fact, it got louder. Arturo, the school director, came out of his office because of the strange sounds. He passed by us and said that he thought the store that sells fireworks was on fire. So all of the students and teachers proceeded to go up on the roof where we watched a whole store of fireworks go up.

Just to help you compare - this isn't like a fireworks stand at home. It covered the area of maybe 3 houses, American. Also, the structure isn't like a store we would think of the states. Lee says it was of lesser quality than most barns he's seen. Mostly made of wood 2x4s and corrigated iron for a roof, it was basically a facility that would keep rain out. We have no idea what started the fire - with no fire hydrants they had to wait for their version of tanker trucks to come and put the fire out.

We talk about the fireworks alot. Mostly because it's completely new for us. In our world, fireworks were for the 4th of July and New Years, and they generally look nice. Here it's every day - and all about noise.

We walked by the site tonight - we saw where someone's business was - and their livelihood gone. There's really nothing like insurance down here that would cover a loss like that.

Our teachers say that nothing like that has happened in Antigua before. Evidently last year, a similiar incident happened in the capital city.