Summer Festas: Celebrating the heart of Portuguese Community

Summer in Portugal means beaches, vacations and festas! These festas are popular parties that each village has during the months of July through September. Some last for a weekend, some go through the week.

This years festas for Serra d’el Rei was four nights of a grand party.

Last may, our town had a festa in honour of Nossa Senorha do Amparo, the church down the road. We had no idea what it was about. All we knew was that for 3 nights there were bands playing and we could hear the thumping of the dance music. On Sunday there was a procession through town to the church.

After that weekend, our wonderful friend Natalie informed us that the festa in August would be so much bigger. You either decide you are all in for the weekend or get out of town. 

The week before the festa, the town began to decorate. Town workers installed lights through the main road of the town and down the side street where the festival set up. Advertisements of the bands and events were posted all over —not just in our town, but the neighboring villages as well. 

This is not a carnival

We thought that these parties were sort of like our carnivals or fairs back in the United States. Each fall, every town or county has one where people go to ride the rides, eat the food and participate in a contest for their livestock or agriculture. That’s not the case here.

Festas are usually in honour of a saint or church. This one was in honour of Nossa Senhora de Piedade.

Each festas is sponsored by a group and this year ours was exhibited by the Serrana-ADCR co-op to raise money for the new futebol field. Artificial turf is expensive but necessary in a climate that has 300 days of sunshine.

There was an area set up in the centre of town with a large stage and dance floor. There was a food truck, churro truck and a beer truck set up down by the stage. We also had a bar on the other end. There were airhockey tables and a couple of foozeball tables set up as well. 

https://youtu.be/qTlBDFKrC_0?si=14q6eFHBat-JThDs

The party usually started about 10pm. The bands would come out to play and it was quite the production. There were light shows, videos, dancers–it was more than just a cover band playing popular songs. It was an all out show.

At about 2:30 in the morning, the DJ would come on and play for a few hours. We were not up at this point in the evening but you could hear the thump thump of the bass through the closed windows of our flat.

https://youtu.be/xkwcAbW_pDA?si=Wa-F1wzcgJKdL13n

Festas is community

But festas is more than a party. It is a community event. Many people volunteer their time, money, and products for the event. Many of the people who grew up in the villages return to visit family and participate in the festivities. It is a homecoming of sorts.

Each night, the sponsoring group puts on a dinner. And this isn’t just any dinner. There is a full menu with your choice of chicken, beef, lamb and seafood. Plus wine, beer and coffee. There were two seatings a night and reservations were a must.

We had only been living in Serra D’EL Rei for 5 months at the time of festas and had no idea what to expect, but we did know that we wanted to contribute to the cause in some way. Natalie’s husband, Cesar, was one of the people in charge of this years festa so we asked how we could help.

“Can you peel potatoes? Make desserts? Chop carrots?”

I didn’t feel up to making a dessert for anyone yet. I doubt the Portuguese would have an appreciation for “Oreo mudpie” as we do in the US.

We opted for peeling potatoes. Cesar told to show up after lunch (which is somewhere between 2 and 4pm) and to bring a potato peeler if you wanted. Paring knives were available in the kitchen.

Bringing the community together one potato at a time

So, around 2pm, we–the two of us and Geoff, showed up at the kitchen ready to work. Only one other person was there and could not speak English so we sort of explained what we were doing and he set us up with a sack of potatoes and tubs for washing. We asked how many we needed to do.

“Two or three sacks.”

Não há problema . Shouldn’t take more than an hour or maybe two.

Then Cesar came in with Natalie and 6 others to help out with the prep. He explained to everyone why we were there and everyone was grateful for our help. But we soon realised how slow and inefficient our potato peeling was when presented with several village elders that could peel potatoes with a paring knife in one peel.

But here we were sitting in a circle with about 100 pounds of potatoes and 4 other villagers whom I recognised but didn’t know. No one could speak English and our Portuguese was very limited. Geoff was the only one who knew enough to communicate.

Festas can be…revealing…

When one lady found out that Geoff was Scottish, she began to probe him with questions about what a Scot wore under his kilt. Some of it was in Portuguese, some was hand gestures but there was much laughter in the group.

Another lady tried to teach us some Portuguese. She would hold up potatoes, peels and knives and teach us the words. We would forget them immediately, but it was such a wonderful exchange.

Cesar would come in and bring us free beer. We drank, peeled potatoes and tried to understand each other. Family members came in and out of the kitchen to visit. One boy of 15 came in to visit his grandfather. He spoke a little English. We found out that he was in school in France and was home visiting for the festa.

Not one picture was taken the entire time we were there. We peeled over 100 pounds of potatoes and worked for 3 hours, but it was quite the honour just to be included.

We ended that night at the dinner where we communed with friends and made new friends that were visiting for the summer, all in the spirit of festas.

Want to hear us talk about festas and our other adventures? Check out our Podcast!! You can listen on Apple, Spotify and Google Podcasts.