Semana Santa is what Paraguayans call the week leading up to Easter. School stops on Tuesday, and most people get off work before mid-day on Wednesday. Families share a last supper on Thursday and every night there is a religious celebration of some kind—not everyone goes. The TV is filled with depictions of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The gory details are not spared.

After the last super, you aren’t supposed to eat anything but chipa until Easter Sunday, or at the least, you aren’t supposed to eat meat. Chipa is a kind of cheesy biscuit, that promptly gets stale.

The chipa tradition is neat because it is unique to Paraguay. The idea is that every family makes their own chipa, and as families visit each other on Friday and Saturday they exchange chipa. As I got ready for Semana Santa, my friends explained that people take chipa less seriously than they once did. Many people buy chipa these days, and most people eat other things (though they do avoid meat).

I made around 500 hundred chipa on the Tuesday and Wednesday of Semana Santa. Several of the señoras I visit most are part of a baking cooperative. I helped them make chipa for their clients, and also helped various community members who used the cooperative oven make their chipa.

Making chipa is a strenuous process. First, you whip raw animal fat, vegetable fat, or maybe butter with your hands until it is smooth, then you mix in all the other ingredients. You mix everything with your hands, and by the end the dough is crumbly. From that point, you knead the dough until it is the consistency of putty. From there, you shape each individual chipa.

I like chipa making, especially for Semana Santa, because it brings the women of the community together.