The neighbourhood of El Tablero will celebrate their XXI Feria de La Zafra on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 June. This year the central theme will be dedicated to the role played by families in the development of tomato cultivation and its contribution to the prosperous evolution of their socioeconomic environment.
Organised by the San Bartolomé de Tirajana town hall’s department of Culture and Action, the Harvest Fair is held every year as a cultural and festive event with the double objective of honouring the memory of the pioneer residents and, also, remembering the importance of the agricultural work that they carried out to earn their livelihood.
To analyse and give a retrospective view of the role that families played in the harvests, the Fair will offer on Friday 15, starting at 19:30, in the Cultural Centre, a photographic exhibition of old snapshots and also a round table discussion, at which selected local residents will speak, all of them having been linked in the past to the agricultural development of the tomato plantations that completely dominated the South and Southeast of Gran Canaria before the advent of modern tourism.
This XXI Fair of La Zafra will also, on Saturday 16, starting at 18:00 in the Plaza de la Iglesia, present a sample of local handicrafts, children’s craft workshops, traditional Canarian games, exhibition and sale of gastronomic produce, a reading corner, exhibitions of the native stick play and martial arts and the famous shepherd’s leap used for centuries by goat herders to cross this island’s mountainous terrain, separate workshops of chácaras and drums and of creation of rag dolls will also play a novel role alongside typical and traditional snacks of the harvest.
During the afternoon there will be a show of work songs that characterised the harvests, from a resident group based in Castillo del Romeral; there will also be a representation of the baile de los palos “stick dancing” by the theatre group La Cuadrilla of El Pilar Senior’s Centre, of El Tablero.
