Articles

  • Kite Making in Haiti
    I have never met Julie Scott in person, but like many stories at Drachen, they begin with a simple encounter through the phone, email, or letter. This particular collaboration started with an earthquake, not a small one, but a large one that has left a small island a disaster. The nature of many earthquakes renders the residents in much despair and tragedy, shattering their everyday living patterns to that of survival. You know all the asks: “Where do we get uncontaminated water, building materials, medical supplies?”
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  • KITES IN HAITI
    It is truly a moment of awe when - above the smoldering trash piles and ruined rubble of homes and livelihoods - kids, living in the squalor of bed-sheet tent cities housing 1,000 or more persons, can create such a magnificent art.
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  • A Tradition in the West Indies: ‘Singing’ Kites Surface in Seattle
    George A. Peters is a West Indian living in Seattle who has made a satisfying career for himself as carpenter by day, musician by night, and kiteflier over the weekends. He likes doing all three jobs, but it is the kites that are his great passion. “Kites are uplifting, fun. They relieve stress. You combine paper and sticks, string and glue and that thing goes up in the sky. What more pleasure can anyone get? I love making kites, teaching how to make them, flying them. That’s my satisfaction in life.”
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  • String Valuable and Zealously Guarded: Flying Fighters With the Children of Havana
    Will Tefft, 44, of Santa Barbara, California, travels the world as a representative of a map company. He organizes mapping crews and purchases maps for resale. As a convert to kites years ago and fighters in particular, he always carries some small Indian fighters with him. He has happily flown at such disparate locales as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where hundreds of people had kites up when he was there, and in Uzbekistan, where children only---no adults----flew odd circular kites.
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  • Memories of Kiteflying In Port au Prince
    We flew kites in the Easter season, but that often meant for as much as two months prior to Easter. Since I was in the city of Port au Prince, where there was little open space, we flew from our rooftops; most houses are one- or two-story and flat-roofed. Whole families flew kites from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. There may well have been 25,000 people flying kites at once.
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