They all tell stories of making them with their grandfather. Complicated geometric shapes pasted together with glue made from yucca flour. The fragile tissue paper is folded and sliced into triangles and then worked together again to make an array of colorful three dimensional patterns. I looked on as the cousins, uncles, and siblings worked to make the forms, I wondered in between folding and pasting and cutting and slicing with delicate papers scattered about, how did they know what to do? There were no blueprints or connect the dots, no paste by numbers or instruction manuals. How did they do it I wondered. So I asked them. And they said, we just know.
From Pablo to Pablo, the oldest cousin to the youngest, they knew what to do. They and their uncles and aunts before them had learned from those even before that. They remember two-storied diamonds and three dimensional crosses. Folding papers with Tito and lighting the mecha for the very first time.
I don't know how other families are, but in this one, globos are what they do. Some might bake cookies or build snowmen and sandcastles but in this family its paper balloons. For Christmas and New Years they gather and make them. And when they are ready they light them to fly. The hot air rises, lifting it up. They don't all fly perfect, some burn quickly while others soar high. But what is important is that they remember, they do it together, and then they watch them fly.
some globos are as big as houses (the neighbors are also fanatics)
That's fantastic! I want to make an un pequeno globo when I come to Medellin. Love M
ReplyDeleteI didn't know they were homemade globos. Those are really cool!
ReplyDeleteI want to learn how to make a globo. I love all the participation
ReplyDeleteHow do they fly?
ReplyDelete