Festa Junina

In the month of June Brazil celebrates something called Festa Junina (the festival of June) which is very similar to a harvest festival (because June is in the fall for them). The tradition originates from the farming areas of brazil, where the people would thank saint john and two other saints each weekend in June for their harvests (that is why the festival is also sometimes called Sao Juao "saint john" in portuguese). Now it is celebrated through out the whole country. It is common for schools to have festa junina parties for the kids where they dress up in very colorful outfits like "country folk" with braids, missing teeth, and patch-work patterned clothing.

It is common to draw on uni-brows, black teeth, and freckles. The girls usually always wear their hair in pig-tails and the boys always wear the straw hats. 

ISA had a festa junina party for us and Dina drew rosy cheeks and freckles on me :)

The festival also usually includes colorful flags made of paper. These flags can be found through out the whole city during the month of June used to decorate shops and squares in the spirit of the festivals. There are public festivals at churches, public squares, and night clubs, but most are private where families and friends come together for the traditional party, which consists of different traditional foods, country music like sertanega, games for the kids, and a wedding! It is common for people to get married at these festa junina parties as something like a "shot gun wedding" where the bride and groom need to get married fast and cheap for one reason of the other. This is a cheap way to get married because these parties are commonly pot lucks so everyone is supposed to bring a dessert or entree item, so the bride and groom don't have to pay for much. Some of the tradition food served at these parties are different desserts made of peanuts (they taste like the inside of reese), pamonha (it is like the corn part of a tamale  but it is sweet, kind of like a doughy corn bread that comes served in the corn husk like a tamale), 

cakes made of aipim (the root that they use to make flour here [celia made this for me, it was delicous especially with a cup of coffee] this is a website that explains some different types of flour made in brazil and it's history: http://www.brasilbar.com/blog/archives/mandioca-flour-replaced-wheat-flour-in-brazil),

this is the aipim root before it is cooked, you can boil it and eat it like a potato or you can fry it and eat it like a french-fry (see below) p.s. they are way better than french-fries because they are denser and more savory. 

 cakes made from pinhåo which is a brazilian nut you steam and then pop out of the shell (it tastes very nutty and kind of plain, I haven't tried the cakes or breads made from them but I have heard they are delicious). 

Also empandåo de frango o carne are very common too (those are common any where any time in brazil, its a staple of their diet [which i completely understand because they are amazing]) 

Below are pictures from the ISA little Festa Junina party, we had the desserts made from peanuts, chocolates with marshmallow paste in them called "peitos pretos" which literally means black ladies boodies no joke, lol we died laughing when we heard the name.