The sky's the limit for kampung kites

Adrian Thirkell , Contributor, Jakarta | Mon, 05/19/2008 11:50 AM | City

TESTING THE WIND

When 12-year-old Madon woke last Sunday in his kampung in Ciledug, he knew it would be a special day.

His homemade blue and white kite was ready, and Madon would enter it in the kampung kite festival that morning.

Madon has been a kite enthusiast ever since his father, Apos, showed him how to build kites when he was just four years old.

"He taught me everything," Madon said.

"Which bamboo to choose -- the black not the green; how to shape and bend the frame; how to tie the frame together and attach the fabric," he said.

By 6 a.m., more than 20 boys from the kampung had gathered in one of the few remaining green spaces yet to be claimed by South Jakarta's burgeoning housing developments, preparing to launch their kites.

A short while later, under cloudless blue skies and with the sun still coming up, more than 30 kites were aloft, dotting the sky like hovering birds and swooping and rising as the breeze caught them.

"It's great to feel the tug of the kite," 12-year-old Dapat said, "but we don't have to hold onto the kite the whole time."

In fact, once kites were airborne most of the boys attached them to bamboo poles stuck in the ground, securing the kite by fastening their strings to them. This way they could fly more than one kite at a time or assist their friends.

These kites used either tissue-thin paper or plastic material. The bamboo struts cost next to nothing, but the spools of string cost around Rp 5,000 (60 U.S. cents) each.

Abdul, who organizes the local kite festivals once a month, said each event attracts more and more youngsters from the kampung, with up to fifty boys participating at each event.

"There's a lot of sky up there" Pak Abdul said ... "anyone with a kite is welcome."

Not one of the boys that day had heard of Jakarta's kite museum in Jl. Haji Kamang, South Jakarta, but they all knew not only how to make kites, but how to fly them with skills at their fingertips.

The kite museum, founded by art patron Endang W. Puspoyo, opened in 2003 and has since welcomed hundreds of school children who have learned how kites have been used in Indonesia to scare birds from paddy fields, in fishing and (in Bali) as part of temple rituals and prayer.

The museum is also home to Indonesia's largest kite which is shaped like a fish and is 22 meters long, but even as small simple toys the pleasure kites offer was evident on the morning of Abdul's festival.

"Every Indonesian child learns how to make kites," he said.

"Kite flying is part of who we are. It's colorful and cheap. It uses local and recyclable materials ... and sometimes I feel it's my soul up there. I can forget everything for a while," Abdul said.

While Abdul is unemployed, he earns money by running the occasional kite-making workshops and selling kite materials.

It was clear on the day of the festival what the virtues of kite flying are. Everyone enjoyed being out together, but the real thrill was the kites themselves; at first immobile in a child's hands, and then suddenly airborne as they catch the wind.

The only thing missing, though, was girls. All the kite flyers that morning were men and boys.

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