Saturday, March 28, 2009

Kite Flying this Summer



When i see kites in the sky, i enjoy watching them. Honestly, i don't know how to fly one. I grew up in the city and did not get the chance to learn how to fly a kite. Good thing i met my wife who taught me how to do it. I tried it more than once and i enjoyed doing it. Hopefully, we can also teach our son to fly a kite when he is big enough so he too will experience the feeling of knowing how to fly a kite.

When i was employed at Haribon Foundation, we had an event in one of our project sites in Antique Province. It was called the "Bird Kite Festival". Participants will make kites in the form of local birds and will be judged according to their creativity, showmanship and its air worthiness. After a year, Haribon partnered with Kite Association of the Philippines and organized another Bird Kite Festival in The Fort Global City. The Kite Festival was participated by kite makers as far as Bulacan and Pampanga and was featured in local tv station programs. Because of the success of the event, Haribon continued organizing the event for 3 consecutive years plus several invitations from different cities and municipalities. Kite enthusiasts attended the event, paraded their kites and got awards from different sponsors. We also got a lot of walk ins who just want to watch kites or try to fly a kite themselves.

Nowadays, we seldom see kite flyers in the city. I guess, one of the reasons is the lack of space to fly a kite. People are limited to fly kites only near the Manila Bay area (Luneta Park), University of the Philippines Diliman Grounds and at the Fort Global City. Plus kids are more interested in playing games at home with their PSPs, Nintendo or PCs. I wish that someday, kids would also learn to play outdoor games, be physically active again or at least enjoy learning how to fly a kite.

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