Kite runners of Kabul

There is a unique sound without it I cannot imagine our home in Afghanistan. When I close my eyes and think about Kabul, it is always the sound of flying kites what comes to my mind.
As we just moved to Afghanistan, I used to climb on the roof of our guesthouse: it was then the only possibility to see around. My favorite memory is about boys who just started to practice as kite runners with their primitive self-made plastic kites.
As winter is closing more and more kites flutter in the sky. The top event is Kite Festival that takes place around New Year, i.e. in March. My husband’s driver Massoud offered us to see the festival. There were thousands of men and boys – flying their kites over Kabul Stadium. We were greenhorns in Afghanistan, so we were afraid of the crowd. We preferred to stay in the car and looked at the kite runners from distance.
As a matter of fact, the string of the kite can be dangerous. Najeeb, colleague from Pakistan, tell us that Pakistanis use the small bits of glass to make the string sharper. It is a really nasty idea: those dangerous strings have caused fatal accidents.
Late Friday afternoon young relatives are visiting our landlord and trying to fly their colourful kites in our yard. The first attempt on the ground is not successful, so they move on to the balcony. I join them as an observer.
Youngsters need just one minute to send the kite up in the sky. After some time I can only see a small dot and five minutes later it is gone. Obviously somebody cut the string…

It is a fantastic feeling to sit on the balcony and to look at all those colourful pieces of joy everywhere in the sky. There is somebody on almost every roof. I try to count, but I stop after twenty. Just before the darkness falls, the experienced looking guy on the roof of the neighbour’s house draws down the last kite. The kite fighting is over.