From Floor to Sky: The Giant Kites of Sumpango Cultural Tour, 2015

Even though this was my fifth year leading a small group to Sumpango to experience the story behind the Giant Kites, the wonder, devotion and larger than life creations are always fresh.    Every year the kites are different.  Some of them are Gigantic, as high as a six story building.  Others of them are simply Giant, from 4 to 6 meters  -- taller than a person and requiring a team to fly them.  Regardless of size each and every one of them is made from Chinese tissue paper and glue, an effort directly involving over 700 members of this Kachiquel Maya town, who work every night for months to make kites for this day, the Day of the Dead. Every kite has a theme of life, death and transformation. 

For five years I have had the pleasure of working with master kitemaker and good friend, Julio Asturias and his family to develop and co-lead this tour.    Julio began making giant kites over thirty years ago and continues to work cutting and gluing the mosaic that becomes the Gigantic kite as well as teaching traditional kitemaking throughout Guatemala and exhibiting giant kites internationally as well as working as a school teacher.  Julio's enthusiasm for art, kites and people makes this tour a truly below the surface, welcoming and unique experience. 

Oct. 31 2015 For the last several years we have been fortunate to stay with Betty and her family.  The family has cleaned and prepared their rooms on the second level of their house for our exclusive two-night use.  The covered balcony and terrace become our common rooms for dining and sharing.  Besides the comfortable accomodation,   the house is close to the cemetary and kite festival grounds. We stashed our things in our rooms, which are really the family's rooms, cleaned and prepared for our two night stay, each room with its own key.  Betty's family will take to the couches in their living room and no one will mind, it is all a part of this special time.  Our group hurried to the terrace which overlooks the Kachiquel Maya pueblo of Sumpango, Sacatepequez and the mountains which frame it.  Betty's son, Victor served us lunch -- Guatemala's famous pepión with hot tortillias and treated us to some close up kite flying with his cousins. 

October 31st is a busy time in Sumpango.  People are cleaning the cemetary and decorating the graves with flowers, pine needles, white lime, and wreaths for the celebration of dia de los muertos, the Day of the Dead.  We visited the special market where townspeople buy these things and also the special foods they will prepare to eat in the cemetery on Nov. 2nd.
The Giant Kite festival on November 1st attracts thousands of visitors to Sumpango.  The people of  Sumpango are not only busy making giant kites, but are preparing for the biggest tourist event of their year.  It is estimated that 25% of the yearly income comes from sales associated with the festival.  In a country where the average wage is $2.00 a day, this is an important opportunity to gather enough money for school supplies and maintaining the home. At the same time, the festival itself is free and the kitemakers themselves pay for the construction of their kites, a significant expenditure of limited funds.  Learning the cost of constructing these kites made me determined to channel the money from this tour directly into the hands of the kitemakers and to the people of Sumpango. 
More immediately, grand entreprenuerial ventures were unfolding on the main floor of our homestay. Betty and her sisters, mother, mother-in-law and a couple of neighbors were chopping a mountain of carrots in the dining room surrounded by large plastic bowls where corn was softening before being ground for tortillas.  When they finished the carrots they began mincing pyramids of onions. The six women  talked and joked with each other as they worked the onions, dry eyed, while we began to tear up and opened the door for more air.   They were making food for 300 plates to sell festival goers the next day. 
In the next room, Victor, his uncle and cousins affixed bridles to the traditional eight-sided Guatemalan kites which they would offer for sale not only for the festival, but throughout the kite flying months of November and December. 

From the Day of the Dead market we headed to the cemetery to attend a Mayan shamanic ceremony which blesses the Giant Kites and calls on the ancestors for their guidance. This is also a time when the outstanding young women in the pueblo are honored and blessed for their leadership and intelligence.  We were welcomed, as foreigners, into this special ceremony and given candles to feed the fire and receive a blessing.  It seemed appropriate that Volcan Fuego released a plume just as the ceremony was beginning.

While we were buying flowers and throwing our candles into the fire, the barrileteros or kitemakers, were still cutting Chinese tissue paper into mosaic pieces and patiently applying glue with small paintbrushes to put their unique puzzles together.  Although the deadline was the next day and there was clearly a lot of cutting to be completed, they worked steadily but without haste, somehow assured that all would be well even though they would not sleep another night.  Besides meeting the kitemakers and understanding more of their art, it's much easier to get a good photo of an 18 meter kite when it's on the floor instead of towering overhead.  The large kite on the right has been in design and patient persistent construction for one year.

While some of the kitemakers are cutting and gluing, others are in the field above the cemetary.  The night is misty giving it a surreal air as the barrileteros dig two meter deep holes, literally digging with a post hole digger until it is the depth of their wrists.  Then hoisting the fantastic lengths of bamboo which will secure the Gigantic kites.  Firecrackers celebrate the successful planting of poles while vendors provide grilled meat and cold beer. 

Nov. 1  We were up early and ready to walk to the kite festival after breakfast.  We are lucky because Betty's house is very near the cemetary and the festival grounds.  The weather was gorgeous --  the sky clear and totally blue.  Some of the kites were already in place and we had a good view as the crowds were several hours away from arriving.  Kites over 6 meters -- what I call the Gigantic kites -- are posted for exhibition and not flown.  For these multi-story high intricate creations, mounting them and making them sturdy enough to survive the day's weather is the main challenge. 

The kites six meters and under 20 feet in diameter  in the traditional eight-sided Guatemalan design are also exhibited before they are flown in exciting contests throughout the day.  Most of them display the intricate designs mixing Mayan cosmovision with contemporary issues for which these kites are known. 

This year, seven kites were airborne at the same time, one of them 6 meters.  This is the most kites by far I have seen in air, many crash without achieving significant elevation.  For the first time, an all-women's group won the competition.

The Giant kites are flown throughout the day according to size.  Hoisting the larger kites into the air requires teams of barrileteros, as well as good wind, as the kites are quite heavy and the flyers must maneuver through  crowds of festival attendees. 

It was late afternoon when we walked back to Betty's for dinner.  The tourist shuttles had all left hours before to battle hours of traffic.  We spent our evening sharing pictures and stories over tea with whiskey.
Nov. 2 In the morning after our breakfast of scrambled eggs, fresh cheese, frijoles, fresh salsa, steaming tortillas and coffee, we gathered with Julio to make our own kites, images of the giants from yesterday fresh in our minds.  And once again, after making many Guatemalan kites, I am confronted with the art of applying white glue to fragile pieces of Chinese tissue paper without causing distortions.  It is no wonder that it is applied with fine paint brushes.  Still the creativity of the group is always a delightful surprise!
From there we wandered up to the cemetery where it is traditional to fly kites to the ancestors, while scaring away the evil spirits with the fluttering of the flejas, the strips of paper on the sides of the kite.     Vilma, and her neighbor brought us a feast of chicken and pasta salad,as we ate among the brightly painted tombs under the warm cloudless sky. 

I can hardly wait to see next year's kites.  Maybe you'll join us for an experience which never ceases to amaze and inspire me.