Forgive me if this thread duplicates anything. I had a good search and could not find a thread just on Afghanistan.
I am not starting a geography forum although. . yanks are very bad at it
THIS inspired me
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/wo...5kites.html?hp
How great if we could send kites and string and paper to Afganistan istead of guns.
Quote:
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: December 15, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan — The kites appear suddenly, whimsical flashes of colour that kick above the beige landscape here of relentless dust and desperation.
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They reveal themselves, like dragonflies, at the most unexpected moments: through the window of a grim government office, beyond the smoke curling from the debris left by a suicide bomber, above the demoralizing gridlock of traffic and poverty. To a new arrival in this chaotic city of three million, they are unexpected and wonderfully incongruous.
Banned during the Taliban’s rule, kite flying is once again the main recreational escape for Afghan boys and some men.
. . .
While nearly all the string sold in Afghanistan is now factory-made and imported from other countries, most of the kites are still made by local artisans.[/B]
By consensus in Shor Bazaar, a blocklong market of tiny kite shops in Kabul, the best kite maker in the capital is Noor Agha, a slender and vain 53-year-old man who lives in a squalid mud-and-stone hovel in a cemetery and is missing most of his teeth.
“Nobody can beat me, nobody can do what I’m doing,” he said one recent afternoon as he sat barefooted on the carpeted floor of his workshop making a kite. “Even computers can’t beat me.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/wo...5kites.html?hp
Perhaps you know a soldier in Afghanistan you could send some sting to, it seems in short supply.(??) How much string will be thrown out over Christmas in the West?
(We need not to put the kite-makers out of business but string seems in short supply. Would sending kites to the NATO troops so they can play too be OK?)?
I made brown paper kites with my dad every August (windy month -or it was)
Once while working for the Army, during the Viet-nam war (Victoria Barracks). I galvanised a few confederates into stealing army glue, paper, sticks, brown paper, cleaning material (for tail) Then we had some great lunch hours making the kite and flying it in nearby Moore Park. What a kite (
paid for out of defence budget- you would expect no less
)
It was REALLY fun even if everyone thought the Army had put LSD in out tea.
