It's that time of year, coming up to Easter, when the strong steady winds and the fact that children are on holiday mean that all over the island, men and boys (but not many women or girls, for some reason) are engaging in the traditional seasonal pastime of kite-flying.

In the past few weeks, I've been seeing kites everywhere.  People have set up temporary roadside stalls and kiosks just to sell kites.  The modern North American plastic kites are fairly popular, but there are plenty of the old-style Bajan kites, which I much prefer, on offer too.

Traditional Bajan kites are typically hexagonal, made from a framework of light wood covered with geometric patterns of multi-coloured tissue paper, with long strips of cloth for the tail.  Some of them have what's called a "bull", a flap of paper attached to the kite so that it flaps in the wind and makes the kites buzz or "sing".  (Someone in my neighbourhood got an early start on the kite-flying season and staked their kite out way back in January; I could tell because, although I couldn't see it in the early light, I could hear its steady buzz in the otherwise quiet morning air when I went out for my run. It's since been joined by two others, each with their own distinctively pitched hum.)  I've heard stories about kites with razor blades tied onto the string, so that they could be maneouvred to cut other kites out of the sky, but I've never seen one like this. 

The kites can range in size from less than a foot in diameter to many feet wide.  For years there was an annual kite-flying show and competition on Easter Monday (I don't know if it's still running) with entries up to 40 feet tall competing for the prize for biggest kite.  Biggest kite that actually flies, that is, and the trouble was that kites that large really don't stay up in the air for long.  If the wind is high enough for one to manage to make it off the ground at all, the frame is more likely than not to break under the strain and the kite will plummet down, sending spectators running for cover.  At the other extreme, last week I saw this small boy with a small kite — it was just a few inches across and made of sticks and an old plastic bag — trying with a look on fierce determination on his face to get his kite to rise even 6 feet into the air and stay there.

One year one of my cousins had a kite that broke free.  It was a beautiful kite, around three or four feet wide, with a fantastic intricate pattern of triangles in bright reds and blues.  He got it up into the air and let it far out and up, and the kite was weaving and dipping and twirling and dancing in the sky, and we were all marvelling and taking turns to hold the string and feel the kite pulling and tugging against our grip.  And then the string broke and down came the kite.  And it didn't fall nearby either, it came down a good distance away, because he'd let out so much string.  He made his mother get in the car and take him to the areas where he thought it might have fallen to see if he could get it back, and they searched and searched for it but it was nowhere to be found.  My cousin was 17 or 18 at the time and thought he was a big man, but when he came back from his failed retrieval mission, there were tears in his eyes for the loss of his kite.

Next weekend will be the big kite weekend.  At the Garrison Savannah, and on beaches and on hills and in open fields, people will be flying kites.    Every time I see a kite flyer, whether it's a couple of boys racing across a pasture trying to get their kite to rise or a grown man at the Garrison bracing hard against the strong pull of the kite soaring high above his head, I feel a little tingle of joy and a smile comes to my face.  Maybe I should get a kite of my own?

See some pictures of Bajan kite-flying here and here.