let´s go fly a kite, up to the highest heights . . .

So it´s kite flying time here in guatemala. I´ve heard a few varying opinions but from what i can gather the official kite flying season lasts from 15 sept (independence day) until 1 november (all saints´ day). On november 1st, in a couple towns in guate, there are big kite festivals where people bust out with huge kites, made from various materials and fly them in in honor of loved ones who´ve passed away. i really want to go check out the festival this year. So i was walking down the street on Friday, and i saw some of my students gathered in the street watching one kid fly his kite. We started to talk and he asked me if i wanted to give it a whirl, so i did and it was a lot of fun. And it seemed the whole town walked by and smiled at seeing me fly this kite with my patojos. My boys asked me if we fly kites in the u.s. and i said yes, but i always bought mine; i´ve never made my own. Then somehow it was decided that i would come by on Sunday around 10, for a kite-making lesson. So Sunday rolls around and i stop by the tiendita where 3 brothers/students of mine live, and there were 3 other students from my favorite 6th grade class there too. We went to the mercado to buy the sticks and then to my friend´s librería to buy papel chino or tissue paper. After that we headed back to the boys´ house to get to started. I didn´t really help all that much in the actual making of my kite, but i stood by and watched as chepe worked his magic. Now i shoud tell you about chepe. He´s in my favorite classroom and it became pretty obvious to be early in the school year that he´s got a little bit of a crush on me. (Lindy, you know which boy i´m talking about). So chepe did a superb job with my kite, i mean i was acutally pretty impressed with the engenuity of all the boys. But my kite was of course the biggest, with the longest colas (streamers), and chepe even aulas (wings) on the sides. It was like the cadilac of kites. But the the piece de resistance was the corazoncito (heart) he cut out of a head and shoulders box to put in the center. Another student cut out an ¨L¨ to paste on as well and we were ready to go. It´s kind of hard to find a good place to fly kites because the steets are really narrow and busy, and there are tons of power lines. We headed to the soccer field but it was occupied so we walked down the road a bit to an open space. At first my kite wasn´t doing so well. I think it was my fault; i´m kind of out of practice and i can´t say i spent a whole lot of time flying kites when i was younger. My kite kept taking nose dives and chepe would go running after it and bring it back to me to start over. He decided it need more weight and tied a piece of cardboard to it. I let him start it up this time and he had a lot more luck. Then he handed it over to me and i got the hang of it with the kid´s adice ¨Dele más yilo! Jale!¨ Then chepe dedided we should play a game. I can´t remember the name of it, but bascially one person takes the kite string which is wrapped around a used plastic bottle and throws it away from the direction of the kite. Of course the kite´s force pulls the string back toward it, where the rest of the players stand at the ready to catch the string. It´s actually a lot of fun. Until someone misses the string and the kite flies away. and gets caught in a tree. Which is what happened to my kite. Then the rescue mission began. The boys tied rocks to both ends of a piece of string and threw it up trying to lasso the kite down to earth. Mirna called just then and i was giving her cooking advice when the boys must have freed the kite somehow, but unfortunatley it drifted off and became entangled in another tree. The next thing i know chepe has climbed the tree, determined to save my kite. He must have spent 20 minutes among the branches scrambling around. I was afraid he was going to fall (it wouldn´t have been the first time a male injured himself trying to woo a female i suppose). I told him: ¨We can make another kite, but we can´t make another chepe!¨ But somehow, miraculously, he got the kite down. He couldn´t help but beam as he handed it back to me. I swear, if he was fifteen years older . . .


Oh i forgot to mention my favorite part about the actos civicos that were done in the park on independence day. They had just started up the himno naciónal, when this little boy of about 3 or so walked up to the space between the elevated stage and the first row of benches, unzipped his pants and well you can guess what happened next. Of course nobody did anything, meanwhile the mayor, reina de ipala, and everyone else of importance is up on stage singing away. for the rest of the morning everyone walking up to the stage (including the flag bearers) had to walk through the puddle of urine.