Getting in the shoes of an Overseas Filipino Worker

Posted on November 28, 2018 by arg8

Darna Cruz, a young filipino woman from the capital city of Manila located on the biggest island in the Philippines, Luzon is one from the 10.2 million Filipinos working abroad. This 29 year old is an immigrant as she has permanently gone to live 8,092 kilometers away from home in Saudi Arabia were she has worked for 5 years as a caregiver.

(Creative Commons)

Darna lived in her parent’s house with them and her two small brothers, Andrei and Jayson. Soon after finishing the second year of highschool, Darna dropped out the day she was announced she was having a sibling. She was told she had to replace her mother in the sewing factory as her mother would not be able to work there. The next day, her father and she got onto the car and rode the opposite route from school to Quezon City, a 33 minute ride, into a garments industry called Armina Garments. This great known industry had previously established quotas on textile items which were imported to European nations, Canada and the United States. This caused serious problems to garment manufacturers given there were more and more products being created at lower and lower costs, closely leaning into labour exploitation. After many needle pricks, Darna started getting the hang of her first job and soon she got her first month salary, P9060 Philippines pesos, equivalent to $180.

The year Darna became an adult at age of 18, she operated intraregional migration to Quezon City so she could better commit to her now permanent job at Armina Garments. She shared a miniature apartment with other four Philippine women who also worked at wholesale, but she barely spent time there giving that she had to spend from eight to twelve hours at her job. She meeted with the Cruz family every two weeks if possible and financially helped them with what she had saved up, however, it never was enough.

(Creative Commons)

The Philippines country working for progress, it is gradually developing, but it has a long way to go to reach developed status. As the CIA World Factbook states, “while there has been some improvement, underemployment remains high at around 17% to 18% of the employed population.” So far, efforts into improving tax administrations have helped facilitate debt burden. The current government in the Philippines is presidential republic lead by Rodrigo Duterte, and wistfully it is known to be corrupt instead of fighting for what is right, fair and just. Within this country, the two main topics missing from social conditions are poverty and inequality. Some of the causes are: low quality of jobs and weakness in employment, high inflation during crisis periods, high levels of population growth… These are also some reasons that cause brain drain where highly trained or qualified people migrate to another country in order to make use of their working abilities.

(Creative Commons)

At the age of 24, exhausted of working non-stop receiving peasant money as a result, Darna realized she had to do something more to keep her family standing. She had heard from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW), people who fled to other countries in order to search for better quality jobs and salaries than what they had back home. 1.5 million Filipinos are working in Saudi Arabia, and given that this country has the strongest Arab economy, with high salaries and with tax free benefits such as housing and medical insurance, Darna knew this was her next future.

Without hesitation and weeks of planning, Darna kissed her two little brothers, hugged her parent and walked away from the Cruz family in the look for a better future. Her push factor was them, she could not stand that there wasn’t enough food to feed the boys, that they had to receive poor education, that they did not have a proper shelter to call ‘home’. On the other hand, she also had pull factors, she had heard that in Saudi Arabia, there were many job opportunities and with better salaries. Even though her move was voluntary, she felt forced to in order to help her family. Although it was far away from the Philippines, her hope for a better work quality was high after working like a fool in those sewing factories. In addition, the Philippines government always encourages citizens to take pride on the OFW referring to them as “heroes of the nation”. Of course, this was the cause given that approximately 80% of remittances come from seven countries around the globe.

Darna now lives in Saudi Arabia, in a house of three were she works as a caregiver at all hours. She cooks for them, cleans for them and babysits whenever they need her too. Although she has a lot of work, they treat her well and with respect and they provide a shelter and food for her. Darna finds life in this country so much easier and less stressing given the amount of jobs available and the reasonable salaries. She found a big community of Filipinos and they keep themselves as a close community and she recently discovered societies like Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) which help protect the rights of the workers. Even so, she still finds face racism and abuse and often targeted as “illegal migrant” even though her move was completely legal.

(Creative Commons)

Darna stays in touch with her family by calling them every week and she sends them most of the salaries she receives. Her move has improved both her life and her family and she misses hope but knows that home for her is the place where she is respected and cared of the most.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Works Cited

Asian Development Bank. “Poverty in the Philippines: Causes, Constraints and Opportunities.” Asian Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, 27 Apr. 2018, www.adb.org/publications/poverty-philippines-causes-constraints-and-opportunities.

“Philippine Politics.” CBCP News, www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=6692.

Philippines. Compton’s by Britannica, 2011. SIRS Discoverer, http://discoverer.prod.sirs.com.

Rubenstein, James M. “Migration.” An Introduction to Human Geography, Ninth ed., Pearson

Prentice Hall, 2008, pp. 80-109.

“The Voice of Our Community Promoting Trade Education, Employment & Research.” Hinrich Foundation Vietnam Ceramics Sourcing Report Highlights International Buyers Prefer Crafts with Simple Design and Little Decoration Comments, hinrichfoundation.com/hinrich-happenings/armina-garments-story-flexibility-2/.

“The World Factbook: Philippines.” Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 1 Feb. 2018, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html.

Genius Hour Zero Waste

Posted on March 29, 2018 by arg8

For my second Genius Hour, I chose to study a topic about living a zero waste lifestyle. In fact, my research question was: How does living zero waste change our lives and Earth to the point that it impacts both of them making them healthier?

I decided to investigate about this topic because I had watched many interesting videos by an expert on zero waste named Lauren Singer on ways to reduce waste, where trash ends up, and after a while, I started to get very hooked to this topic. Another reason I decided to investigate about zero waste is because:

(imgflip)

There were some basic things I knew about this topic, but overall, I was very impressed with the new things I learned.

The first thing to learn is the 5 R rules of living a zero waste lifestyle:

(Ramos)

While looking at an awesome zero waste blog called “Going Zero Waste” by another zero waste expert, Kathryn Kellogg, I learned the most productive ways to reduce waste at home:

Compost
(Ramos)

Composting is combining organic matters together for a period of time in a way where it’ll decompose to create great soil. Some composable things include egg shells, non-plastic tea bags, toilet paper cores, leaves, cereal boxes, fruit scraps… As a matter of fact, 25% of the things we throw away is compostable, including the organic matters discussed above. There are many types of composting such as digging a hole (easiest way), worm box or Vermicomposting (special machine). But it doesn’t matter which way you do it, you’ll be helping the ecosystem greatly by composting!

Reusable bags & jars

Bags– Although there are many places were plastic bags are not allowed, there are still many places where plastic bags are given to you every time you buy something, specially in Africa. That’s why, instead of spending money on buying plastic bags, and then throwing them away, buy a fabric bag, and use it as many times as you want without polluting the earth and oceans. Keep at least 5 fabric bags from every size in your car and door knob so every time you leave home, you have reusable bag in hand.

(Pixabay)

Jars– As for the jars, it only comes in handy when buying at special shops. In fact, in some food shops you need o bring your own reusable jar because these shops have long tubes with ingredients such as beans, pasta, candy, where you open the tube, and fill your jar with as much quantity as you want, then, you pay depending on the size of your jar. This is a great invention because you take as much quantity as you are going to spend and no plastic is wasted on packaging.

Create your own DIY products

Making your own DIY products can be a great way to reduce waste, mostly because you avoid buying all those containers where make-up or shampoo is stored. Creating your own DIY products isn’t only great for the environment, but also for your health, because you use natural products and you know what you put in them.

Use Multitaskers

Instead of buying a thousand bottles of different shampoo for the hair, try using less because once you use all the substance inside the container, the bottle will end up as trash in the ocean for sure. And, soap is soap, so using one type of shampoo for body, hands and hair will work great anyway. Ex: Kiratine- it is used for the hair, but can also be used to moisturize the lips and it can be used as lotion.

Keep it real!

Do whatever you can to reduce trash!

How to stop consuming waste while buying:

SECOND HAND
(Pixabay)

Second hand is super useful and while buying clothes, furniture, objects and toys. The reasons are because:

You stop being a consumer
You reduce waste – buying something that has already been used gives it a new opportunity before being thrown away.
You become community friendly – the money goes to NGOs or to organizations that need the money, not to really rich people.
It is way cheaper!

FARMER’S MARKET
(Flickr)

Buying food is the way that we consume the most waste due to almost everything in the supermarket being packaged. However, the farmers market is a place where food is sold without any plastic covering them, just like in the picture: If people bought often from the farmer’s market or shops with dispensers, a lot of waste wouldn’t be used and thrown to the ocean.

Now, the question is, why do we need to care about trash?

We’ll, it’s simple, because it is all being stored in the same planet as we live in and it is affecting the life of all human beings. In fact, when we throw all of those big plastic bags full of trash we have been accumulating into the big container, very little gets recycled, while most of it goes directly into the ocean polluting it in many different ways. After it is in the ocean, it divides up into five different gyres; a whirl of water in which waste accumulates and stays there for a very long time. The biggest gyre is in the Pacific Ocean and it affects a hundred thousand of sea animals per year.

As a matter of fact, the 7 things that often end up in the ocean are:

(Ramos)

What I have learned will help me as a person in the future because while living in Senegal, some of the things I can’t do such as going to ecosystem markets or ride a bike to go to school, or recycle paper when trowing it away, however it just makes me more eager to do these things when I go back to Spain, because here I can’t do them because of restrictions. Also, I have started to realize that little things make a change too, so even if it is saving paper, or accumulating less or getting rid of the stuff you don’t really need, I am helping the environment.

Also, this project has tough me to educate my family, for example, with my sister, I made a nest for birds to eat different seeds out of an egg carton. What I learned honestly helps everyone; the community, animals, myself and the world. If we created less trash, we would breath cleaner air. If we created less trash, hundreds of thousands of sea animals wouldn’t be sick per year. If we created less trash, the north pole wouldn’t be melting as much!

I am not really sure what I will learn in my next Genius Hour project, but I would like it to have something to do about fashion / sewing or how to become more flexible. I know my next project has to be something that helps the world, but I’m not really sure about that yet… :l

(Waste Shifter)

Images Cited

Jakbraun. “Second- hand-lettering-dresses”. Pixabay, June, https://pixabay.com/en/second-hand-lettering-dresses-2353682/. February 28. 2018.

Waste Shifter, “Human Foortprints”. Twiter, 7 december 2017, https://twitter.com/WasteShifter/status/938704684000464896. 10 March, 2018.

Sheffield, Allen. “Dallas Farmers Market 2”. Flickr, July 10, 2011, https://www.flickr.com/photos/awsheffield/5932294914. February 28, 2018.

Van, Alex. “Food M M Candy Candies Children’s Sweets Colorful.” Pixabay, 16 Jan. 2014, pixabay.com/en/food-m-m-candy-candies-246221/.

Leo, Killer Di. “Rising Sea Levels, Pollution, Overpopulation…” Imgflip, Meme Generator, imgflip.com/i/tf2fx.

Twitter Expert Connect Part 3

Posted on January 21, 2018 by arg8

Hello!

During a couple of months, my class and I have been working on a project called ‘Twitter Expert Connection Assignment’, which like the name says, we were doing connections with people that had the same interest as us through Twitter.

First, we had to find a topic we would like to concentrate in. I chose Zero Waste* because I have been very interested about it since I think it is a great way to help the planet. This is also the topic I am doing for my second Genius Hour. *Zero Waste is a way in which by producing less trash and accumulating less things, we become aware of how we impact the world around us, and we take better care of it.

Once we had chosen a topic, we had to find 10 experts or people interested in it, so we could follow them and learn a little bit more about this topic. This are the 10 I chose to follow which showed knowledge about Zero Waste:

Lauren Singer @Trashis4Tossers	Bea Johnson @zerowastehome	Litterless @golitterless	Waste Shifter @WasteShifter	Rob Greenfield @RobJGreenfield

Kathryn Kellogg @goingzerowaste	PAREdown @Paredownhome	The Girl Gone Green @ManuelaBaronC	Beth Terry @PlasticfreeBeth	Ivan Clark @icplanner99

Once we had our experts, we had to ask them some questions about our topic. I chose to ask them more specific things about zero waste such as how to compost, the hardest things to give up or the positive outcomes of shopping second hand.

At first, I was a little bit lost because I had no idea on how I should ask the questions to these people that I didn’t know much about and that I hadn’t met in person. But the one thing I knew was: I couldn’t be creepy. Finally, I decided to address them all as Dear _____, then thank them for their interesting post, and finally asking them a question.

Not all of the 10 experts answered my questions, but those who answered gave me incredible responses and help as well as recommendations and websites. All this information helped me for my Genius Hour because it answered many questions that I had about my topic from actual experts that I couldn’t find just like that in the internet.

Now I am going to talk a little more on what happened in the process:

Overall, I got three responses from the questions I asked, which isn’t a lot, but those who answered had very useful explanations. Waste Shifter (who ended up following me 🙂 ), gave me a link to a university report on waste and Kathryn Kellogg gave me tips to create a compost in the garden without any important materials. Of course, after they had answered, I send them another tweet thanking them for the information.

–> Picture of the compost I created that I send to Kathryn Kellogg.

As a conclusion, I have liked a lot this project because it helped me develop the way I ask for help as well as being careful with the people we follow knowing if they will respond back and give useful information, or if they are too busy to do so. I will definitely use what we learn in the future such as writing a long IB essay, specially if I need specific information from experts.

Works Cited:

“Zero Waste Heroes.” Twitter, pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/687926599866540033/W-ry0mvT.jpg.

Bye bye!

SBC 8 Let’s play a game or two

Posted on December 5, 2017 by arg8

Hello everyone!

This week’s challenge is about visiting other’s blogs, leaving comments and writing a blog post abut who’s blogs you visited. I think this is a great activity because we get to work and share information with other bloggers as well as learn from them!

This week, I visited 3 blogs which I liked very much. Here are the blogs are the reasons why their blogs are so good:

Naho’s Blog

One of the things I most like about Naho’s blog is that it is super organized and it includes everything. At the beginning of each post, she has a couple of sentences explaining the week’s challenge so that we are all clear of what she is going to be talking about. She also includes beautiful pictures which helps the reader to follow along with the text as well as some links.

Here I commented on her very interesting blog post about Maui.

Dear Naho,

Your blog is amazing! I specially liked the post on Maui. You include beautiful pictures and the paragraphs are very well written. In fall break, I went to visit one of the Spanish islands, Gran Canaria, and it was also very beautiful! What is the longest trip you have ever been in?

Congratulations on your blog!
-Alicia

Justin’s Blog

I love Justin’s Blog for one simple reason: His friendly voice towards the audience. All along his blog posts, he uses a type of writing as if the audience was his best friend. This is a very important thing because it invites the public to read in a very funny way.

Here I commented on his blog post about a very funny poem with a picture of an ostrich.

Hi Justin!

I really enjoyed reading your poem. I am from Spain, so I speak Spanish. That’s why I found your poem with Spanish rhyming words very funny! Good job writing it! If you had a power, would it be flying?
By the way, it’s azul, not azule 😉

Thanks,
Alicia

Sadie’s Blog

It totally impressed me how informative a blog post can be. Sadie’s blog post about Endangered Animals – Sumatran Orangutans in danger of was short but it included all kind of information we want to know. This is great because the blog post doesn’t make the reader tired, but it informs him/her of what’s going on. Her pictures were also really good.

Here I commented on her post about Sumatran Orangutans which are in danger of extinction.

Hi Sadie!

Your post on Sumatran Orangutans is very interesting! I love how you included so many facts and important information, for example, that they can memorize their forest like a map. The fact that surprised me the most is that there are only about 4000 Sumatran orangutans left in the world. That is too small!
What is your favorite animal?

Thanks for writing this informative post!
-Alicia

See you guys!

Genius Hour Flamenco

Posted on November 21, 2017 by arg8

FLAMENCO

For my first Genius Hour project, I decided to investigate a little bit more about flamenco. I chose this topic because I am from Spain, but I felt like I didn’t know a lot of information from one of the most famous activities in Spain, the dance of Flamenco. Two years ago, I had received some classes, but I still wanted to find out deeper information about it and important facts.

This was my main research question which I needed to answer by the end of this project: What is the meaning of flamenco dance and where does it come from? How to dance it?

Where did it come from?

Flamenco came from Andalusia (Wikipedia) which is located at the southern autonomous community of Spain. Although some say it also came from Rome and from the nomads (people who live in different locations moving from one place to another). It was mostly danced in canteens or cafes to entertain people and create a better atmosphere. After a while, flamenco became a richer cultural mix.

When did Flamenco start?

Flamenco developed in the 14th century, however, it became way more popular in the 19th century, when the guitar as well as dancing accompaniments were introduced. (A.Romeu)

What type of dance is this?

Flamenco is very different from ballet, in fact, there is a huge difference between those two. While ballet is calm and gentle, flamenco is rough and unique. If you ever see the face on a flamenco dancer, you’ll see that their face is very hard, as if they were angry with you or something. This is because flamenco expresses a lot of emotion and strength.

(RoomSevilla)

This dance falls into three different categories.

Cante jondo – expresses the most emotion and shows/talks about →death, and other dark stuff.
Cante chico – expresses →romance and less important subjects.
Cante intermedio – mix of the two cantes above.

This are some important and most famous accompaniments that you’ll find in Flamenco:

Guitar
Hand claps
Improvised dancing
Singing
Castañuelas- this is an instrument that you play with the tips of your fingers making a wood tapping sound. They look like this–> (Castanuelas.com)

Flamenco with piano?

A while ago, I went to see a flamenco concert called « L’Art de la Haine et de l’Amour » which was very unique because the main instrument wasn’t the guitar, in fact, it was the piano. Yes, the piano! It was very surprising because piano is more likely to join ballet.

But what made this concert look so much like flamenco although the instrument wasn’t there, was the force of the pianist; Pablo Rubén Maldonado. He used his whole arm, from his shoulder to this fingers, and he was literally punching the piano. This shows that flamenco is nothing sweet and calm. It uses a lot of strenght both in the dance and the instrumental side.

(le soleil)

What are some moves?

‎(Wikimedia Commons) Your hands are positioned in front of you making a circle shape. The hand movements are a bit different for men than for women. They are both making rotations inside and outside, but men have to have their fingers together, while women can open them. While doing this, you have to try to keep your elbows from moving.

General Moves:

Men- Focus more on feet movements (zapateo) and heel tapping (taconeo).

Women- Focus more on arms (braceo), fingers (florea) and uper torso movements.

Dress Code

Flamenco’s outfit plays a big role on performances and culture.

(Viva España) (flickr)

The professional flamenco dress usually is figure hugging and long (ankle length). However, the not professional ones are shorter and not that tight. The color of the dress is usually red, black or white, and it is decorated with a pattern of polka dots and fringes. Some accessories that you might see are: ribbons, long rounded earrings, bracelets and combs. Lastly, how women dancers might arrange their hair is by making a bun with a rose on top of the bun, or behind the ear.

Reflection

This project has helped me learn a little bit more about my culture and one of the most important things Spanish’s citizens celebrate. However, this project hasn’t helped the world or the community because this is a project about something cultural. In the next Genius Hour, I will learn about Zero Waste, which will help the community around me to learn what happens with all the trash we produce and how we can prevent it.

Here is the link to my flamenco slide show presentation. Check it out!: Flamenco Presentation

Works Cited

“Castanets palo pink african”. Castanuelas.com

https://www.castanuelas.net/3559/castanets-palo-pink-african.jpg

“Localización De Andalucía.” Localización De Andalucía, Wikipedia, upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Localizaci%C3%B3n_de_Andaluc%C3%ADa.svg/2000px-Localizaci%C3%B3n_de_Andaluc%C3%ADa.svg.png.

A. Romeu. “Juerga Flamenca.” ALCOCER ANTICUARIOS, antiquesalcocer.com/paintings.html.

Fatima. “RoomSevilla.” Tradition of Flamenco, 1 May 2017, roomsevilla.com/media/blog/images/flamenco_guitar.jpg.

“Who Are the Jury Members?” ¡Viva España!, www.vivaespana.ru/upload/Karen-Lugo-Flamenco.jpg.

Currystrumpet, “Granada flamenco dresses for kids” Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/currystrumpet/8180342263

Wikimedia Commons “File:Hand drawing.png” 12 January 2017. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hand_drawing.png

Le soleil, “Spectacle flamenco au Grand thêatre : L’artiste espagnol Pablo Rubén Maldonado en attraction le 14 octobre”, http://www.lesoleil.sn/2016-03-22-23-38-25/item/70451-spectacle-flamenco-au-grand-theatre-l-artiste-espagnol-pablo-ruben-maldonado-en-attraction-le-14-octobre.html

SBC 5 After School

Posted on November 13, 2017 by arg8

Hi everyone!
Today I am going to talk about what I want to be and do once I finish school.

One thing you need to know is that I am a BIG dreamer, so my dreams for the future can be a little bit crazy, just letting you know.

If you have read my “All about ME” page, you might have noticed that I LOVE sewing. I make a lot of my clothes as well as some dresses and skirts for both my mum and my little sister. When I sew, I feel like I have the power! You can do whatever you want. You probably know that feeling when you go to buy a t-shirt and you like it so much that you end up buying it. But inside, you just can help thinking about what you would like to change about that piece of clothing. Maybe the color is too bright, or the length is too long, or you don’t really like the picture in the center of the t-shirt. Well, guess what, being the designer of your own clothes can make your clothes be exactly how you want them to be like. This is why in the future, I would like to become a…

fashion designer! Image result for fashion designer (iStock)

On the other hand…

However, I would really like to work on something that would help the environment and nature because I think we, the humans are producing a lot of waste and we need to get rid of that or find a solution to this problem if we want to keep our beautiful Earth safe. That’s why, another option I have of what I would like to become in the future is an Agricultural Engineer. Plus, I enjoy math and science. (flickr)

So, to make both of my dreams come true, I decided to do this:

Build a tiny house (flickr)

Yes, I want to build my own house, well, I want to build a tiny house, which is normally about 46 m^2. Pretty small, right? Here are some reasons why I want to do so: Building your own house totally relates to what I was talking about in the fashion designer section. 1) If I build my own tiny house, I can design it however I want. 2) I want to live a life with the things I really need and to learn to minimize and to get rid of things that I don’t actually use or need. And this relates to the environment, because now we are consuming a lot of things that we’ll later need to throw away. 3) Since the space is reduced, there are many secret places in the house, like under the couch, there is a box full of skiing equipment, or the bed might be in the ceiling. Isn’t it fun! Another reason I want to live in a tiny house is because 4) I want to travel around the world and visit as many countries as I can. Traveling with my house is way easier that trying to look for houses or hotels and after all, you’ll never feel the same living in another place than your home sweet home.

I got my inspiration from an awesome tiny house women called Jenna that built her own tiny house and makes videos about other tiny houses that she visits. Here is the link to her amazing blog about interesting things of living a tiny house life and other important fact: https://tinyhousegiantjourney.com/

Live a zero waste life

Living a zero waste life means reducing the amount of trash you produce, meaning not using trash such as plastic, containers or rubber. For example, if you go to the supermarket, you bring your own bags made out of fabric and your own jars instead of taking plastic bags which are one of the dangerous material in the Earth. Living a zero waste life also means creating some of your own products like toothpaste and lotion. Like the tiny house, living zero waste means reducing the amounts of things you have because they are going to end up in the trash anyway. You also learn to compost which is a great way to recycle and produce soil.

Here is the link to the blog of a great example about a women living zero waste called Lauren Singer who makes videos and blog post about how living like this can be awesome: http://trashisfortossers.com/

So as a summery, when I leave school, I want to become a fashion designer who lives zero waste in a tiny house traveling the world with my cat Tortilla. 🙂 This way, I can do both of my hobbies, create clothes, and help the environment.

Works cited

“Fashion Designer.” IStock, 25 July 2016, www.istockphoto.com/photo/fashion-designer-gm544667458-97945245?esource=SEO_GIS_CDN_Redirect.

Aqua Mechanical, director. Biotechnology Engineer Examining Immature Corn Cob on Field. Flickr, Flickr, 16 Feb. 2016, www.flickr.com/photos/aquamech-utah/24954081852.

Ben Chun, director. The Shed. Flickr, Flickr, 14 June 2009, www.flickr.com/photos/benchun/3625699371.

SBC4 Organizing a party

Posted on November 6, 2017 by arg8

172

We always struggle to organize a party. We often doubt on whether our guests are going to like the games prepared, the food, the music or the decoration.

Here are some great and fun ideas and games for your party:

Games:

Gift game:

This is a fun game to give the guests a little present to thank them for coming. You can make different decorative sacs with different things inside them: Candy, bracelets, nail polish, stickers, thank you cards, cool pencils… Anything you want! Then, put each sac inside an ugly plastic bag and cover them in a way that no one can see what is inside. Next put all the gifts together in a big table. Take two decks of cards, it is better with the standard cards, but it also works with the UNO cards. Distribute all of the cards in the first deck to the guest and keep the other deck to yourself. Everyone’s packet of cards should be facing down. Lift the first card, show it to the guests and tell them to lift their first card. The person who has the same card as you, gets to pick the first gift from the table. The game proceeds until everyone has got their gift. The next person that gets the same card as you can switch gifts with whoever he/she wants. And finally, everyone can open their gifts!

Would you rather & Time’s up:

Would you rather questions are very fun when you have several questions planned out. To make sure you’ve got enough, collect questions out from any website and print them out. Then, cut them in pieces, fold them in four and put them inside a glass jar.

For time is up, you can do the same thing but with names of famous things like celebrities, movies, books, authors, actors… (make sure everyone knows the famous things). Here are the rules to play Time’s up: Divide the guests into 3 or 2 teams. Provide a number of famous things to imitate. The first round, they have to describe it. The second round, the have to describe with only one word. The third and final round, they have to act it out. After each round, you count the number of papers you got right and the one with most papers has won the round.

Decoration:

Lanterns:

Rounded paper lamps are the best for a birthday party specially if they are of different colors. They give a cheerful atmosphere whether they are lit up or not.

The “Selfie Corner”

Selfies can become more fun when using mustaches, bows, fancy glasses and hats right? You can put a fancy fabric or tablecloth in a wall and put some sticks with fancy drawings of accessories in a cup for people to take funny selfies. You can also provide hats, wigs or masks.

Food:

Fruit brochettes

This snack is healthy as well as very refreshing specially when living in a country like Senegal. Pick many different types of fruit like pineapples, mango, strawberries, oranges and watermelon. Keep them in the fridge for a good amount of time so they are cooler. Then, take different pieces and place them through a wood stick. Ready to go!

Mini pizzas

This lunch is easy and individual. Lather than having a big pizza for everyone, you can make mini pizzas so everyone has it’s own. You can even make them different for people’s taste. Some might not like olives in the pizza, others might like a lot of mushrooms, others might not want pork… This is a meal to please everyone!

Please, answer in the comment section some of this questions or make your own post about them, but remember to come back to leave your URL so I can visit your post:

What would be your ideal party?

What traditional games does your family play in parties?

What is the only thing you would extremely need to organize a party? (it can be fabric, drinks, games… )

Creating my little me

Posted on November 1, 2017 by arg8

Hello!

Just to give a little more information about me, I’m going to explain my avatar which I created by used the application called “Face Q”

My mini me is called Ali and she looks pretty much like me. My hair is dark brown and most of the time I wear it in a high messy bun. My eyes are big, but they are very dark brown, not like my avatars. My favorite article of clothing are the cardigans as well as the hippie pants because they make me feel relaxed and calm, plus, they always have beautiful patterns in them. One of my favorite activities is painting, and writing, that’s why my avatar holds what looks like a pencil as well as a paintbrush. That’s pretty much the description of my avatar and me!

SBC 3: Creating my own images

Posted on October 31, 2017 by arg8

Hi readers!

Here is a comic that I created with help from the awesome website called MakeBeliefsComix.com

I also wanted to give away a message by creating the comic.

Plants play a big role in our environment. We are killing trees and polluting plants… But we can change this! I challenge anyone who has read this comic to plant a seed and take care of it. After you have done this, you can comment in this post and tell me that you have completed this challenge. My goal is that at least fifteen students or teachers do this. Remember, every new plant can create a difference.