As Costa Rica’s Independence Day - and all of Central America’s - approaches, the excitement flaps in the flags and flutters in the faroles. And is a farol what you ask? A lantern that lights our way of course.

Every year school children around Central America stick a candle in a lantern and walk with a pole that looks like the crook of a sheperd’s staff on the night before the 15th. Since the holiday is on a Monday this year, school children around the country could be seen today dressed in Typico clothes while toting their farol at their side. The farol is most dramatic at night of course when the candles are more potent.

Some parents (probably terrified at the fire hazard possibilities) opt for those light sticks. Those light sticks are hard to find. My kids always end up with candles. The first year my daughter went, one of the children’s lantern lit on fire. It made the parading of children in the pouring rain along the side of the dark road that much more exciting.

My daughter’s lantern was the traditional “buy-the-box-at-the-store” and then decorate the rest at home. My son got the bottom of a box. The kids will also dance and eat tortillas and beans and rice. But come the 14th, we’ll light up the faroles right along with the rest of Central America in thanks for our collective independence from Spain. We’ve come a long way baby.