Barriletes in Atitlan

The late afternoon light illuminated the cobble-stoned streets of San Juan la Laguna, Atitlan. Shadows elongated as the sun moved slowly towards the horizon, casting the towering volcanoes and rugged hills in golden-pink light. The wind off the lake caused small white caps to form and slap persistently against the reed-covered shore near the town. Women and men of all ages sat in shop doorways talking in the wind-echoing sounds of T’zutujil, an indigenous Mayan dialect found around Lake Atitlan. They would switch quickly to Spanish as I walked down the street greeting them. “Buenas tardes,” they responded politely before continuing their relaxed conversation with their neighbors.

Trotting down the street, I noticed the signs of November surrounding the small town. The sky was clear and free of the persistent clouds that marked the rainy season. There was a constant, yet unreliable, wind that cooled the sun-warmed afternoon and summoned the evening. The light was fading although it was only 5:00 in the afternoon in the tropics. And more than anything, there were kites everywhere, a sign of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations recently passed.

Several Guatemalans have told me that kites help unite the spirits in the sky with the ground below. Indigenous Maya will write wishes or thoughts to their ancestors and tie them to their kites’ frames to send to the heavens. With any luck, they will be able to communicate with their dead loved-ones. What a beautiful idea.

I looked into the sky at the cirrus clouds that cast ribbons through the deep blue and noticed on every telephone wire and nearly every tree the limp forms of battered home-made kites. It reminded me of Charlie Brown and the Kite Eating Tree, only in Guatemala there were Kite Eating Wires as well. Hopefully if those kites had wishes, they were sent to the sky before being devoured by wires, trees, and poles.

Loud cries of T’zutujil sounded from the street startling me out of my sky-dreaming. Small boys, their pants dragging on the street and hands grasping toilet paper rolls wound with string, ran swiftly to catch the finicky wind that would take their hand-made kites into the sky. The bright, octagonal shapes lifted up, up into the sky, born into the wind rising from the mountains. Each of the homemade kites, a mosaic of blue, orange, red, yellow, and green patchwork, lifted cheerfully into the heavens. Their long tails caught the breeze and waved merrily at the passersby below. I hoped their kites wouldn’t meet the same fate as the dozens hanging limply in the poles and wires above. But, just as I hoped this, the wind died, and one of the octagonal kites fell dispiritedly on the opposite side of a phone line as the boy-owner. He and his friends began to giggle and tried to pulley the kite back over the wire and onto their side of the street. They tried and tried but gravity persisted and the kite lay defeated on the other side of the wire. I walked away from their persuits, but sitting here now, I wonder if they ever saved their brave barrilete (kite).

The wind picked up again and in the distance, dancing between the mountains and the sky, I saw another barrilete begin to fly. It looped and twirled beautifully in the windy air and I smiled, remembering all my fond memories of kite flying throughout my life. It was so interesting, I thought, that here everything is opposite the United States. There, March is the windy season when every girl and boy pulls out plastic kites and run to the nearest field where, in teams of two, they run, run, run until the kite catches air and launches into the sky. Here, only boys fly paper crepe kites in the windy month of November. The little frames need barely any encouragement, and certainly only need one boy child to coax it into the sky. How very different.

Eventually night grew closer and closer with the ever-growing shadows on the street corners. The boys, clutching those kites that had survived the day, ran giggling home for their nightly meal of tortillas, beans, and eggs. Those kites that had met the kite-eating fate hung sadly in the wires, their tails begging to launch into the sky again.

I watched the sky change from the lingering traces of red, pink, and purple, to the dark blue-black of night in the Highlands. At the hotel, I climbed to the re-bar baring roof and stared into the sky. I felt lonely there on the rooftop, shivering slightly in the cold breeze. And then I saw the stars and the Milky Way. It is my first recollection of looking at stars in Guatemala. How could I have passed four months with no recollection of the twinkling lights overhead?

Yet, still, my loneliness persisted for even though I knew it was the same sky my family and friends saw, it was completely different. Like kite-flying in November and not March. I couldn’t identify a single constellation. Where, oh, where was Orion? I needed to find it to connect to all I cared about at home. But to no avail, I could not see it. Saddened, I returned to the second floor and sat staring out into the dark night until as if framed by the ceiling and balcony railing, as if I needed to sit there for it to appear, I found Orion. He was lying on his side, his great arm rose over his head and bow in hand, his belt twinkled at me as if saying, Nancy, I’m still here. It is November after all.

Excited and rejuvenated, I clambered back up the uneven steps to the broad rooftop to spy on Orion. There he was as backwards as kites in November and clear skies instead of rainy Moscow. A smile spread across my face as I realized that the same sky my parents see is here, only sideways. My eyes finally spotted Cassiopeia’s W-shaped form, Taurus’ upside down V, the Pleiades, and Cassiopeia’s husband (whose name I always forget). Seeing those stars, connecting to the sky like the cheerful crepe-paper kites, was like coming home again. Eagerly, I searched for the Big Dipper and the Northern Star to complete my constellation search, but I could not find it; it was not out yet. Still, my heart filled at the site of the darkened sky overflowing with lanterns of light. I had connected to the night sky, to home, and perhaps, like the Mayas’ persistent little kites, to the spirits above.