“To think if pieces of paper can have such a journey and story!”
About 3 years ago, a packet, for me, was delivered to my parents’ home in Chandigarh. It had a pack of 500 very good quality origami papers and a handwritten letter.
The letter told the journey this pack had already had…
“This paper meant for Japanese artwork was made in Germany and imported to Kansas. From there it was delivered to California, where another colleague got it to Delhi and yet another colleague got it to Bombay. From where my friend couriered these to Chandigarh with the hope that I will carry them to Angola where they will turn into exotic shapes and bring smiles to someone’s face!”
He knew all about my volunteering with kids in Angola and also knew that I took back supplies from India as it was very hard to find good and cheap art supplies there. We had been talking about the legend of 1000 origami swans and because he couldn’t find any good origami paper in India, he asked some of his colleagues who were coming back from the US to bring some. Of which one was sent my way for my kids.
In Angola, these papers brought many a smile when we turned them into windmills, and frogs, and hearts, and many more shapes.
And then I left Angola and the stack went into storage with all of our other stuff. A year later it took another long journey, this time on the big seas as it came with our shipment from Angola to Romania.
It was only after almost 2 years that the stack came back to life. This time again at a learning space for street children. From being a perfect square, it went on to become a hearts, tulips, fish, whales, and birds… bringing many more smiles 🙂
And we have just begun! No one knows the journey and the stories these will create! Waiting to be an instrument and a witness to it.
Oh! the journeys some papers take. I can write an essay on myself as a paper. I remember in primary classes we used to have essay topics like “the autobiography of a paper!”. This was a perfect journey for that 🙂
Lime 'n' Lemony 