Petare, the largest neighborhood in Venezuela, celebrates its 400 years with the flight of kites

The Caracas neighborhood of Petare, the largest of Venezuela and with a very poor population, it celebrated this Wednesday 400 years of its foundation with dozens of children flying kites of “hope”.

In the El Morro sector of this favela, on the top of which rests a gigantic cross, parents and children armed or mending “parrots”, as kites are called in this country, with plastic bags, wick, wooden wands and torn shirts to The tail.

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“We come to celebrate 400 years of Petare with this activity so good that it is raising parrots, an activity that children sometimes do not even know (…) because they have dedicated themselves to other technology games, which is what is flooding us today ”, Carlos Valbuena, an activist in the area, told AFP that he was wearing a cap with the word “PETARE” in yellow letters.

Several children, however, were experts in this art of flying kites, which walk over the hills full of exposed brick houses and zinc roofs, testimony to the poverty of this populous and humble sector of eastern Caracas where they live. more than a million inhabitants.

A boy shows his parrot (kite) during a Feed Solidarity activity to celebrate 400 years of Petare.

On a sunny and windy day, the children had fun with clowns and storytellers. There were also concerts, art exhibitions and a Catholic mass.

“We are Venezuelans proud to be Petare, and Petare is a huge city, because we are all brothers!”said Katherine Hernández, a homemaker who attended the party with her children.

The activity was organized by the NGO Alimenta la Solidaridad, which has soup kitchens in this gigantic neighborhood and whose headquarters were raided last year by the Venezuelan authorities allegedly for an issue related to its financing, for which no further explanations were given.

A boy lifts a parrot (kite) in Petare.

“The parrot represents hope, possible dreams and we want these children to fly parrots to remember that everything is possible, that everything is hope,” said Ivonne Velasco, a member of the NGO.

Several children met since last week to assemble the first parrots in six of the dining rooms of this NGO, which claims to have helped more than 25,000 children and families in need.

“There is nothing more petareño than a parrot!” Said Velasco.