San Juan Ára: Saint John’s Festivals Nationwide

In June the whole country throws its own “San Juan.” Schools, clubs and parishes organize kermesses (charity fairs) with traditional games such as pelota tata, a flaming rag ball that people kick around; tata ári jehasa, walking barefoot over hot coals; the toro candil, a “bull” with blazing horns; and kambuchi jejoka, breaking a clay pot while blindfolded. People eat mbeju (cassava-starch and cheese griddle cake), pastel mandi’o (cassava turnovers), chipa, butifarra sausage and payagua mascada (cassava and meat patties) to the sound of polkas and guaranias, and the night ends with the burning of the Judas kái, a straw effigy of Judas.