We made our way across the plaza, weaving in and out of the celebrants. Colored lights had been strung from the buildings, painting the night with festive colors. We passed a mariachi band of musicians wearing formal black suits studded with silver buttons who were playing trumpets and armadillo-shell guitars. Cerveza vendors stood behind tubs filled with ice and beer bottles, doing a brisk business. Music, laughter, and shouts filled the air—it was almost possible to believe that we’d left the civil war behind. But when a string of firecrackers on a tall bamboo scaffold exploded with sharp cracks and flashes, more than one person around us cried out and ducked.