Fiestas and Chilillo Fights of San Juan de Oriente, Nicaragua, featured on Trans World Sport

I had the honor and pleasure of working as a production fixer and translator for Trans World Sport in Nicaragua last June on a series of short feature-ettes about local sports and culture. This 8-minute segment, “Bull Penis Sword Fighting from Nicaragua on Trans World Sport,” is the first of seven stories which we shot last summer. It is about San Juan de Oriente, one of the Pueblos Blancos, or small “white towns” in the hills south of Managua. The proud San Juaneños have a fiestas patronales, or annual saint’s day party for their patron saint, St. John the Baptist, that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in 18 years of traveling to Nicaragua. (It is also, for those of you keeping track, my second feature about Nicaraguan bull genitals—the first was eating balls with Andrew Zimmern.) Enjoy!

Behind the scenes: Trans World Sport crew takes shelter next to the main catholic church in San Juan de Oriente as another passing thunder shower puts a pause to the fights and festivities.

Filming in Nicaragua sometimes means waiting out the weather.
Filming in Nicaragua sometimes means waiting out the weather. From left to right: Kelvik Pineda, PA; Joshua Berman, Fixer; Mike Deppe, Producer; Jean-Pierre Bassin, cameraman.
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