Ritual roomba

There's something really weird that my neighbors do every couple weeks or so.

They start fire in a big iron bucket and burn papers, receipts, documents— what I can understand from the yellow and pink coloured visage of hardly 25 gsm wafer-thin rags.

It's not the burning of papers that's weird as the whole ritual attributed to it.

Let me begin by saying that they do it right outside the entrance/exit of the building on the road. It doesn't hamper or get in the way, but still..
Alright, the process starts by first sprinkling some odd scented water in a circle. Then the cast iron bucket is stood in the center of the circle or ring and suffused with paper and lighter fluid, and finally a match to seal the deal.

A ferocious tiny yellow fire begins to rage in its armoured confines and then they start sacrificing their unwanted sheets of papers, and keep doing so until they're done.

The whole process doesn't last more than six minutes, and by the end of it the fire begins to die down and sometime later when the world is cool again, they collect the bucket and leave not a trace of any conflagration.

This is where it gets even weirder: the scented water is repeatedly poured on the periphery of the bucket in a circle on the road as the fire rages on. The water is poured out of a Chinese tea kettle; which is a tiny porcelain little thing, and I'm beginning to think if it isn't actually tea.

Right, so the first time I saw this odd little ceremony was when I'd just newly moved in. To say that it was bizarre would be understating it, but I feigned ignorance when I realized that the person in question responsible for the fire looked awkward and embarrassed to see that I'd noticed it.
I'm not the one for making people uncomfortable or embarrassed unless I absolutely love them, so I pretended like it was nothing out of the ordinary and walked on.

But since then I've kept a tab on this, and every time I see wisps of smoke floating up, I know the ceremony is in order.
Stealthier than a shadow, I plant myself near a window, hidden behind a gauze curtain, to watch the oddball act of papyrus burning.

Too many questions.. why don't they use a shredder? Why the scented water or tea? Why burn documents?

Asking them would be too impolite, but man I so want to know.
Perhaps one day I could walk in on this strange act of setting fire and interview them myself or maybe I could just Sherlock it and uncover the mystery for myself.

So wanted to click a photo but it's not clear from here.