Kiterunners

  Many of our readers are probably familiar with the book and movie The Kiterunner, a gripping story that spans the time of (relative) peace in Afghanistan to the 1996-2001 rule of the Taliban. As its backdrop, the book describes the favorite pastime of kite battles in Kabul, and the Kiterunners who race to get kites that are falling from the sky.

  Today being Friday in Kabul (the Western equivalent of Sunday), my Afghan colleague and I walked up to a hillside where dozens - maybe even 100 - kites were flying and battling in the sky. I was the only foreigner there, and I was mesmerized.

   A kite, its string cut by another's, floats to earth:

 

Kids use these long poles to catch the kites, twirling the string around them. You can faintly see kites flying in the background:

  

    Kites, which come in different sizes, are all handmade, from paper:

     String, coated with a material that makes it sharp, for sale:

   
     Not the bird kind of kites (as in Mississipi, Swallow-Tailed), but amazing all the same...