My town is known internationally for a huge kite festival it has the first week of November every year. Unfortunately, I’m required to move to my new site on October 30th, so I will miss the festivities this year. I have, however, seen several kids in the neighborhood flying their kites in their yards or in the park.
The kites here are different than in the United States. They are made of a material just a bit tougher than tissue paper, are octagonal in shape, and tied together with small pieces of bamboo. They are extremely simple and work so much better than any kite I’ve flown in the US. There’s something to be said for simplicity.
Julian, my host brother, came home from church this morning with a kite in his hand and a grin on his face, his dimples giving me no option but to smile back. After 5 minutes of his older sister threading together the string so we could attach a tail and more string to it, it was ready to go and we ran up to the roof.
After a minute or so, the kite was on its way to the sky but we were quickly running out of string. Julian jumped up and down nervously and told me to go ask his sister for more string. I ran back down the stairs and as we were digging through a drawer for more string, Julian came down saying that the kite was gone. He ran down the street looking for it as we giggled that it had only been about 2 minutes that we were flying the kite.
He came back with a dejected look on his face and no kite in his hands. He pouted for a few minutes until his sister told him to get the money from her room and buy another one. We repeated the process and went back up to the roof.
This time we had been flying the kite for about 10 minutes before I clumsily let go of the string and it flew away. I apologized profusely and vowed to buy him another one, but Julian just laughed and said, “No tenga pena,” which roughly translates to “Don’t worry about it.” I’ll buy him one this afternoon when I go to my meeting.
Kites are so simple and yet so much fun. I dare you to go out and fly a kite and try not to have fun.
