Kites and Dia de Los Muertos

Yesterday was The Day of the Dead I went to a town called Sumpango to watch their annual kite festival. The idea is that every year, for this day only, the spirits of dead family members descend from the heavens and commune with the living. Families go the the cemetery bringing flowers and other things to decorate the gravesites of the deceased and eat their lunch sitting close by in order to have a meal with the departed. Another part of the tradition is kite flying which is a way of creating a closer connection with the spirits in the sky.

It was an incredible site seeing kites fifty feet tall or more intricately decorated with a specific ultralight paper and propped up side by side (these ones aren´t for flying). Another part of the festival is a competition to see which team can keep their kite airborne the longest. The flying kites are smaller than the others but still are 10-15 feet in diameter. Tracks are formed through the crowd to allow the team members to run, pulling the rope attached to their kite behind them in an attempt to get them up in the air. A number I saw were successful, one staying up for several minutes. What´s interesting is that as the teams continue to pull the rope, the kite begins drifting over the crowd and a few actually starting coming down on us. At this point everybody scatters to make way and being applauding when the kite lands without crushing anybody. I kept thinking that in the states we´d probably be watching from behind a fence 100 yards away. This way is definitely more interesting.