Kite flying noise pollution is affecting some Grenadians’ health

by Hudson George

As society constantly keeps on changing, some people change too because human beings create behavioural patterns that affect society.

Now we are hearing some people in Grenada complaining against kite flying in their neighbourhood community. They are saying that kite flying noise pollution is affecting their health pattern of sleeping.

Well if what these anti-kite flying noise pollution activists are saying is true, a lot of us who are grown up men today, who had once enjoyed our boyhood days flying kite in the dry season during the Lent period, must have caused many injuries and deaths among older folks within our villages and we were not aware of it.

So, maybe we must have innocently killed our grandparents, grandaunts, grand uncles, elderly cousins and other old men and women in the villages whom we had loved, and they had loved us too, due to our ignorance about kite flying noise pollution that affects vulnerable people’s health.

On the other hand, if kite flying is creating noise pollution that is affecting some people’s health, I am now wondering why so many rich people chose to spend their monies buying land property and building large luxurious homes and guest houses close to Maurice Bishop International Airport, where the modern sophisticated hi-tech noisy jumbo jets make arrivals and departures flights every day of the week throughout the year.

Furthermore, the issue of noise pollution could trigger other subgroups within society to raise more complaints. For example, if some villagers start complaining about jumbo jets noise pollution disturbing them, will the government close down the international airport and stop large aircraft from coming to Grenada?

The noise coming from the jumbo jets is so much louder than the kite’s “marvel” voice that creates excitement for kite flyers and kite lovers, who enjoy hearing kite singing as the wind blows.

I am sure that these anti-kite noise pollution activists are very much aware, about the big jumbo jets that keep on flying very low over the residential areas in the southern parts of the country with the sound of noise coming from the engines vibrating through the rooftop ceiling of houses as the pilots approach the landing strip at the international airport.

In addition, I am not living in Grenada presently, so I am wondering if the complaints about kite flying as a nuisance to citizens’ health is not an imported cultural moral value imposed on the Grenadian local population, because there some Grenadian returnees who lived most of their productive working for many years abroad who have different cultural values from the majority of local citizens.

The vast majority of these returnees by choice are sort of wealthy or upper class by social status and most likely there is a possibility that they want to enforce North American and European cultural values on the majority of citizens who never travel beyond the shore of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique. Some of these returnees believe that the traditional ways of living in Grenada are outdated and primitive.

Now, this is just my opinion on the issue because I was born and raised in Grenada, where kite flying was a seasonal activity during the dry season that coexists with Christian values for the preparation to celebrate Good Friday and Easter Sunday as holidays for Christian worshippers, based on the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

I can remember parents telling their boy children, that they are allowed to fly kite, but if the kite falls on a tall tree, do not climb the tree to retrieve the kite because Good Friday is not a good day for climbing tall object structures and swimming in the river and the sea. We were warned that if we disobey these rules something bad will happen to us. So, I am wondering if this new complaint about kite flying noise pollution is not a copycat imported culture brought to Grenada by returnees and other wealthy new citizens who want to set their own rules and moral values with an excuse.