San Juan Ára, the festival where Paraguay plays with fire

If in Europe St John's night means a bonfire and a few surviving superstitions, in Paraguay it means a programme. San Juan Ára is an organised festival, with stalls, loudspeakers, a running order of games and half the neighbourhood taking part.

The context: it is winter

The first thing to remember: 24 June, in the southern hemisphere, is winter. The evenings are cool, sometimes cold, and that explains why the festival revolves around fire and hot food. This is not a summer festival shifted by season: it has a climatic logic of its own.

The games

The structure is always a set of challenges, some harmless, others frankly impossible to regulate.

• Yvyra sÿi — a tall pole greased with soap or animal fat, with a prize at the top. Teams or individuals climb, and almost nobody makes it first time.
• Carrera vosa — the sack race, the Paraguayan version of a game found half the world over.
• Cambuchi jejoka — a clay pot hung up, eyes blindfolded, stick in hand.
• Toro candil — a bull-shaped frame, carried by one person, with torches on the horns, that «charges» the crowd. This is the point where the festival becomes something no European insurer would sign off.
• Pelota tata — a soaked, lit ball, kicked barefoot. Exactly what it sounds like.

One clarification matters: the fire challenges are handled by experienced adults, in marked-off areas, and are not children's entertainment. The perception of risk here is different — but it is not absent.

The food

Half the reason people come. The stalls sell chipa, mbejú (a starch and cheese flatbread cooked in a pan), pastel mandi'o (a cassava pastry filled with beef), sopa paraguaya — which despite the name is a maize bake, not a soup — and hot spiced wine.

Stall takings usually fund the school or parish doing the organising. It is a community fundraiser dressed as a party, and it works very well.

How to take part

The festivals are public and plentiful: in the days around 24 June you can find dozens in any city. No invitation is needed — just arrive early, bring cash in small notes, and accept being the only foreigner there.

It is probably the most direct way to understand a central feature of Paraguayan life: the ability to organise something complex collectively, in a few weeks, with no budget and no formal hierarchy, simply because it is done every year.