With continuous breezes, many young children liked to fly kites. However, ready-made kites of various colors were no longer available at the shops in the village. Although the children were eager to play with kites, the season was not right for flying them and the elders were not free to make kites for their children, or to teach them how to fly them.

But Jit Jit pestered his father to make him a kite. Despite the fact that he was busy, his father put his other many chores aside to make a kite for Jit Jit. Father Ko Aye was very patient with his motherless son Jit Jit.

Only he could be patient with such a stroppy little boy like Jit Jit. The boy was not that young, but he was still a child, and he did not know much about the world around him. He did not know much for his age.

In fact, there were many children like Jit Jit in their village, in Dawei, Myanmar. They came of school age during the Covid pandemic, but their studies were interrupted. The school principal went back to the nearby town, fearing he would get infected by Covid, and did not return.

Then, when the school was reopened by an acting principal as the Covid infections became stable, Jit Jit and his friends started attending KG class. In the village, parents did not know much about what their children were learning – they were busy on their farms and could not supervise their children.

Schools sometimes opened and sometimes closed during Covid, and the situation is the same today.

And then came the coup. After the coup, the post-primary school in the village was closed again. Some local teachers and villagers made efforts to reopen the school, but there were not enough teachers.

Most of the students missed getting their lessons and grades. Then they received word to flee the village as the sound of gunshots came closer, and all the villagers tried to hide wherever they could, and Jit Jit’s school became on and off again.

Although he was the age of a third-grade student, Jit Jit did not know the English and Burmese alphabets very well. In the village, there were many children like Jit Jit, who was tall but only a little over 10-years-old.

Jit Jit was very bright, even though he could not read or write very well. He told his father exactly what kind of kite he wanted. He said his kite must have rainbow colors – something like the picture on the cover of his school notebook.

The young boy, who could not remember all the colors, said he wanted a variety of colors for his kite, like those of a rainbow. Ko Aye got busy cutting bamboo and looking for plastic for the kite. Before the chaos, he could just buy a kite at a village store.

But now the stores had shortages of essential items such as rice and edible oil, let alone other items. Commodity prices were also skyrocketing. Ko Aye became upset because he could not buy the colorful plastic sheets at the only store in the village, cotton reel was out of stock and the tape he wanted could not be found anywhere.

Didn’t he promise his son he would receive his colorful kite the following day?

For Ko Aye, Jit Jit was the meaning of his life. He could endure all the troubles in a small village in such a chaotic time amid the conflict of war for his little jewel called Jit Jit. Ko Aye’s wife passed away while they were running away from battles last year.

It was said she would have survived if a hospital had been nearby. For the motherless Jit Jit, Ko Aye was the only one he could rely on, and Jit Jit was the only reason why Ko Aye was living on in the world.

Ko Aye, who became very depressed after the loss of his wife in a time of lawlessness, thought about following his wife, but he could not leave Jit Jit alone to become an orphan in such a dark age. So they stayed in the village where there were plenty of memories of his wife.

Jit Jit had many hobbies. He liked colorful things and would see things and badger his father into buying them for him. He did not like birds with only one color, such as crows or egrets. He liked birds such as tailorbirds, Indian rollers and kingfishers.

Once he asked Ko Aye to catch red-beaked birds for him. He also caught butterflies and put them in glass bottles. Ko Aye sometimes became angry with Jit Jit because he asked for things he could not get.

Once when a huge rainbow appeared in the sky after it stopped raining, Jit Jit cried and asked for it and Ko Aye became frustrated. He had to cajole his son out of demanding the rainbow. A patient man, he did not beat his son. Ko Aye never beat Jit Jit. He strongly requested teachers from the village to admonish his son, without beating him.

Jit Jit boasted to his friends that his father was making a colorful kite for him, showing them the picture on the cover of his notebook. And he also made appointments with them to fly kites together. It would be a beauty contest of kites!

The children also had a big secret – they would fly their kites on the sand beach of the creek near the village. If the elders knew that, they wouldn’t allow them to go there. According to the elders in the village, the creek would drown people.

Both children and adults had drowned in the creek almost every year. However, there was no one in Jit Jit’s group who could not swim. The reason they chose that place was the breeze there was good and there was enough ground to run and get the kites higher.

Swimming was not allowed there for the children. Jit Jit had already promised his father that he would not swim in the creek without his father there too.

No one knew how he made it, but Jit Jit’s new kite was a colorful one – just like the one in the picture. It was the colorful kite that Jit Jit had wanted, even though the structure was not very good. It had long tails and he was a happy boy.

“Go and show it off to your friends, my son,” said Ko Aye. “Fly it low because the thread is not very long. Don’t go far. I’ll go to the farm. We’ll go and have a look at backpacks for you at Ma Ohn Shin’s store in the afternoon.

“The school is going to open. Take care. Don’t go far to play.”

Ko Aye issued the instructions his son had been waiting to hear from his father. Holding his kite, he slipped out of his house and ran to the place where he met his friends. As usual, Ko Aye, wearing his shoulder basket and bamboo hat and chewing beetle nut, went to their small garden, about a 30 minute-walk from his house. The house remained quiet.

Jit Jit was boasting about his colorful kite to his friends. His friends Wae Bo, Than Sayt, Pho Ni and Kang Kang each had a kite. It was not known how they had got them. So Jit Jit and his friends pretended to be playing in the village, and then slipped away to the creek, one after another.

There, the trees were sparse, the ground was wide, the sand beach was smooth and the breeze was good. These were the conditions that Jit Jit and his friends liked. And there was no one at the creek to scold them.

Maybe it was because their kites were not good or they did not know how to fly them – their kites did not go very high. The kites often crashed down, and they flew them again, shouting. A gust of wind cut the thread of Pho Ni’s kite and they had to rush to chase it.

Then the wind became stronger. Wae Bo and Than Sayt held Jit Jit’s colorful kite, while Jit Jit was preparing to fly it into the sky. When a gust of wind arrived, the colorful kite shot up into the sky, riding the wind. Its long tails were fluttering in the air. The children shouted with joy.

Jit Jit was very happy looking up at his kite as it flew in the breeze. But their joy did not last long. Another strong gust of wind cut the thread of his kite.

The colorful kite was blown away by the wind. They ran and ran after the kite.

Jit Jit’s kite ended up hanging over the tip of a big fig tree branch, which was growing alone among a forest of thatch grass beside the creek. Nobody except Jit Jit dared to go to that fig tree. None of the others wanted to go in there. They told Jit Jit not to go there.

The rain clouds became heavier and the wind blew stronger. “Let’s go … Jit Jit! It’s going to rain. Don’t go and fetch your kite,” his friends said.

Angry at his friends, Jit Jit left them and went into the thick forest of thatch grass, leading to the fig tree.

“Ah … this guy,” said Wae Bo and his friends.

After a while, raindrops started falling and Jit Jit’s friends were about to go home.

One of them shouted: “Jit Jit … we’re going home.” Then they heard a loud sound. Jit Jit stopped replying to them. The children ran back to the village in fear, crying. Like them, the black face of the sky wept heavily.

Ko Aye, together with other villagers, arrived near the creek to look for Jit Jit. Ko Aye’s face was like a volcano which was about to erupt. When they reached the edge of the forest of thatch grass, they saw Jit Jit’s colorful kite still hanging over the branch. But none of the villagers dared to go through the thatch grass forest to look for Jit Jit.

Ko Aye was shouting loudly “my son … Jit Jit.”

“Ko Aye. There are landmines there. Something can happen to you,” his friend Ko Htay said with a heavy heart. Nobody dared to risk their life to look for Jit Jit. They were trying to prevent Ko Aye from doing something rash.

Then Ko Aye asked: “Wae Bo. Where did Jit Jit go?” Wae Bo was crying, and answered: “He went there to get his kite hanging over there.”

Ko Aye suddenly ran into the thatch grass forest, heading to the fig tree, and nobody could stop him. And nobody dared to try to stop him. All they could do was listen to Ko Aye calling to Jit Jit in a sad voice.

Ko Aye appeared and disappeared among the tall thatch grass. After a while, a loud explosion was heard and Ko Aye’s shouts fell silent.

“Oh gosh! Nga Aye … Oh no!” cried the villagers.

The rain stopped. The black clouds disappeared, and the sun came out. Then a beautiful rainbow appeared slowly in the sky. The place where the father and son went was suddenly very beautiful. With the rainbow as a backdrop, the rainbow kite hung over the fig tree branch lit up by sunlight, and it was dancing in the wind.

By Ngu Yin Khaing

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