Childhood memories of kites and making and raising a caddy ole punch

By Lakhram Bhagirat

It is a rite of passage that almost every 90s kid received a sound scolding from their parents for ripping the pages out of their school books to make a Caddy Ole Punch around Easter time.
I can still hear my mother screaming at my sisters and I after we ripped out several pages from our exercise books, tore off the ends of our bedsheets and stole spools of thread from our grandmother to make kites. The kite of choice was always the trusty Caddy Ole Punch that took two minutes to make, five minutes to make the “loops” and another 5-10 minutes to raise.
Growing up in the typical countryside meant that we had large open spaces to run and fly our kites. We would spend hours in the scorching sun, not caring about the sunburns, running through sugarcane fields with our Caddy Ole Punch in tow.
Although it was over two decades ago, I still remember sneaking away with my grandmother’s pointer broom and several spools of her thread to satisfy the obsession we had with the famous Caddy.
We can never forget the thrashing we got for the ripped-up bedsheets to make the tails for our kites.
There were always healthy competitions among us to prove that we had the kite that mounted the highest, had the most pull and “whine the best”. I do not think I ever won one of those competitions, sadly.
You see, the thing is my father was perhaps the best kite maker in our village, and many of the residents would come to “Uncle Michael’s” house for him to frame a kite or help them uniquely paste it. He mastered the art of making men, women, birds, boxes and other unique kites out of pointers.
You would know Easter is around the corner when there are residents on their bicycles frequenting our home in hopes of my father agreeing to frame or paste a kite for them.
I learnt, by observing, how to make kites but never really mastered the art of “star-point” and loop making.
Without a doubt, every kite my father made would soar to unimaginable heights and remain there for most of the day and well into the night. There are even stories of the kites he made being airborne for days and many know those stories.
The elaborate kites were never my thing as I am more on the simplistic side of things. It means that the intricate kites created by my father did not appeal to me.
I thoroughly enjoyed the days of my Easter vacation running in the sugarcane fields of my neighbour, getting covered in soot but having a ball of a time running behind our good old Caddy. The Caddy Ole Punch is one of the kites that have sentimental value to a lot of Guyanese.
I think that the Caddy Ole Punch is perhaps the first kite every Guyanese child learns to make. It is simple and requires the least effort.
As a child, I used to arm myself with the pages from my exercise book, two pieces of “pointer” and my thread, then the creation of a masterpiece begins. The process is quite simple since all it involves is the marking of an X to cover the paper and using the “pointer” to thread along the line and voila, you have a kite.
The trick, however, is not in how you make the kite rather it all rests in the loop. Any veteran kite maker would tell you that no matter how pretty your kite looks, if the loop is not properly made, then you might as well just retire that thing as a showpiece.
The art of loop making is not something one can get in a jiffy rather it requires expert skills and patience. It takes many trials and errors before one can conquer the art and make a loop that would ensure your Caddy soared to unprecedented heights and stay there all night.
However, not only is the perfect loop required to ensure a successful Caddy rather the secret of your success lies in the tail. The tail, which is the star of the show, should be as graceful as a ballerina’s attitude. It should be flowing like when Eminem spits verses. In other words, it must be a talented tail and preferably made of cotton or polyester.
Though the Caddy Ole Punch is an iconic part of Easter celebrations, the tradition of making them is dying and rapidly so. The generation now, despite knowing of the famous kite, seems disinterested in partaking in its creation.
Overall, as time progresses, the younger generation is moving away from the actual flying of the kite to the more ornamental aspects of Easter Monday celebrations and that is the decking out in extravagant clothing and hanging with friends taking unlimited selfies.
Although Easter is about the sacrifices of Jesus Christ, the kite flying is somewhat cultural since it has no significance to Christianity. Rather, kite flying is an ancient past time of the Chinese people and is believed to be incorporated in the Caribbean culture because of their arrival to this part of the world.
The Caddy Ole Punch is a symbolism of a time when simplicity mattered. The Caddy came about, according to many, as a substitute since parents were unable to afford the more extravagant kites during a time when resources were scarce to come by. However, it has now become a part of the fabric of our society and those who grew up in that era reminisce on the fun they had running through the fields raising their kites.