The story
San Juan Ara Paraguay in Asuncion/nationwide
Every June 24, communities across Paraguay, including neighborhood editions around Asuncion such as Villamorra and Barrio Mariscal, celebrate San Juan Ara with bonfire-based games, including toro candil and the burning of a judas kai effigy, alongside corn and cassava-based foods such as mbeju, in a nationwide winter tradition blending Guarani and Catholic roots.
San Juan Ara marks one of Paraguay's most distinctive winter traditions, a June 24 celebration that fuses the Catholic feast of Saint John the Baptist with older Guarani seasonal and fire-based customs, and it plays out not as one national event but as dozens of independently organized neighborhood and town editions across the entire country.