Skip to main content

My mischievous star

MSC archived stories - July 9, 2022

Karla (age 8) has just ended her second year elementary studies in June. She's on summer vacation now before resuming school at grade 3 in 2 months time.


Karla is the third youngest of a family of seven. Mayra (mom) and Efren (dad) are hard-working parents making pots and chimneys and survive on $400 a month from their work. She attends the Jacqueline Byer Dial Center in the city of Tonalá – known for its pottery, hand-blown glassware, textiles alike from Mexico.

 

Mayra tells me that Karla loves singing and dancing, and helps a little in the family business so she can learn to make pottery. Mom says, she's very mischievous, loves getting wet in the rain and doing her makeup with many friends. She's indeed an extrovert and outgoing when once gave 'V' hand gesture as genuinely happy seeing me. I'd not be surprised if she was in a paint party to end up like an exploded bomb!


Last year, I gave Karla to do something creative – Origami, the art of paper-folding. It's just what she wanted and mom said, "thank you so much for your origami advice. She loves it."

Here are the instructions if you like to give it a go..

(1) find a piece of rectangular shaped paper, (2) fold it in half like a greeting card, (3) turn it 90 degrees clockwise, (4) bring two top corners towards you to make the equal sized 2 triangles in the middle, (5) fold the top half of the strip over the triangles, (6) turn the whole thing over, (7) fold the other half over the big triangle, (8) open the hat and fold it flat-down to make a square, (9) fold the top triangle diagonally over, (10) turn the whole thing over, (11) fold the other triangle diagonally over, (12) open the hat and fold it flat-down again to make a square, (13) hold it upright from both hands, and stretch open two outer edges fully, (14) open the base underneath slightly and place it on a level surface.

enjoy!

Comments

  1. chelaka29 March 2025 at 12:16

    I'm ready to try this! (What does it make?). What a creative thing for a child to do.

    July 10, 2022

    ReplyDelete
  2. chelaka29 March 2025 at 12:16

    I first learned this origami around the same age as Karla, remarkable you still know how to make it by memory. It's a type of creative therapy (more about at www.thejapaneseshop.co.uk/blog/japanese-origami-creative-therapy). I've asked a few children to try this out (example added to media), hope the steps make sense :-)

    July 10, 2022

    ReplyDelete
  3. chelaka29 March 2025 at 12:17

    How great that she liked your origami lesson!

    July 11, 2022

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pause for Thought! – The value of sponsorship

MSC archived stories - March 2, 2019 As we know the sponsorship does not demand us to write, send special needs or extra gifts to our children, but being a "silent" sponsor does your monthly contribution bring real value (for money) – especially if you live outside the USA, you or CI don't even get tax benefits of your charitable donation? Is this because most sponsors can't afford anymore than the monthly fee to sponsor a child or trust CI so much that they do not feel needing to play an active role in their sponsored child(ren)'s lives to have an impact?   The sponsorship rewards both sponsor and the child through exchange of letters. Then we have social media platforms, like MSC to share our experiences with fellow sponsors – all can be done for free and bring closer understanding of each other and building friendships for life!   But above all sponsorship motivates your child to attend their community center more often not only for letter reading/writing but a...
8 comments
Read more

Giving Tuesday

 MSC archived stories - November 24, 2018 With the  Giving Tuesday  (November 27) campaign in full swing, I thought sharing below resources to gain insight into CI's approach to oral health.   A Smile Restored : www.children.org/FileRoot/1/Docs/JourneysWinter2014.pdf (click download > Open with – Adobe Reader > p.16-17)   Funny Dentist : [youtu.be/PCQYjJUM8DQ]   I have pledged to support the campaign this year because of my sensational superstar, Juliana!
4 comments
Read more

Highlight of my 2018:

MSC archived stories -  January 1, 2019 In accordance with Guatemalan tradition, Katerin took a year break from school – just before I met her to celebrate quinceañera (girl celebrating her 15th birthday). She is now one and a half years away from graduating from the CI program. She is full of hopes for the future and determined to do well in studies, even though there were some setbacks in her academic performance in the past, as revealed in Education Report (ER). The ER, however stated that  “we do not recommend the sponsor send extra contribution for Katerin’s education since the risk that she will not be responsible is high.”    I simply could not believe or accept this premise because I trusted her to do well when she came into my care in early 2017. Katerin wanted to learn typing, so she enrolled in a course at the beginning of the year. In a class of 11 students, she’s doing very well and using a typewriter to write in Spanish. And, we were both fortunate enou...
3 comments
Read more