November 1st is the celebration fot the
Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. To celebrate, the senior missionaries had an excursion to see the
barriletes gigantes or giant kites. The Mayans believe that on this day, the spirits of their ancestors are nearby. The people fly kites to send messages to them. We went to the kite festival in Sumpango, a town just west of Guatemala City, which is known for its giant kites. The enormous kites are made of tissue paper, either pieced together or hand-painted. On the backs, bamboo poles support the paper structure; the poles on the largest kites were about 5 inches in diameter. Contests are held all day long, some for flying and others for design. The largest kites were about 90 feet in diameter, and they don't fly! But it was fun to see them put them together and raise them for display. That is what you see in the first photo, and you can get an idea how large they are...but this one wasn't one of the biggest. Because the winds were light, the largest kites we saw flying were about 6 feet in diameter.
