When I was about ten, living in a village near Kurunegala in Sri Lanka, I made a kite with my older brother, and it's one of my happiest childhood memories. I'm forty now and run a small hardware shop, but I still remember exactly how we made it.
We made it in August, which is kite season for us, because the winds are strong. First we went into the forest behind our house to cut thin strips of bamboo. We split them carefully with my father's knife, which we weren't supposed to touch, and tied two pieces together in a cross with cotton thread. Then we covered the frame with coloured tissue paper that we'd bought with our pocket money, sticking it on with glue we made by boiling rice. For the tail, we used strips of an old sarong. The whole thing took us two afternoons, and it broke twice before it was finished.
We flew it in the paddy fields after the harvest, when they were dry. My brother and I took turns holding the string, and lots of children from the village came to fly their own kites, so there were sometimes twenty in the sky at once. We had competitions to see whose would go highest.
I enjoyed making it partly because it was something we created completely by ourselves, with no money and no instructions. When it finally rose into the sky, I felt incredibly proud. It also brought me closer to my brother, who was usually too busy for me. Now I make kites with my own children every August, using the same method.