Market shopping

One day I went market shopping.  I had fifty Haitian dollars with me. (That's about $6.25 in US dollars.)  Shopping in Haiti is not like shopping in the states.  For example, most shopping in Haiti is outside.  Some things don't have prices, so you have to negotiate with the seller.  The other thing is that you can buy used stuff and new stuff at the same place.  It's kind of like a mall and a garage sale all at once.  But you can also buy food there too.  About 3 years ago, I went to the market with my mom and Nahomi in Petionville and I wrote this blog post about it.    

But this trip was different because I bought lots of different things, and I also negotiated for myself.

Here are the things I bought:  

This real pretty bag.  It looks almost brand new! 

 

These cool black(ish) jeans.  They have zippers at the ankles.

 

This peace sign t-shirt.   It reminds me of my friend Emily because one time she handed me down a peace sign shirt.  I think I want to make a collection of colorful peace sign shirts.  Peace is important.  This shirt and jeans were worn by someone before me so my mom made me wash them before I could wear them so I don't get lice.

 

I got this Chinese/American card box.  (These cards were BRAND new.)

These cool glasses. (new)

This perfume.  Don't be tricked.  It's not really poison, it's just called Poison.  But you still shouldn't drink it I don't think. (new)

Purple nail polish. (new)

Two lipglosses. (new)

These sparkly blue earrings.  (new)

This pink ring.

 

 

I spent the money I brought, plus my mom gave me another 25 gourdes, which brought my total up to 55 Haitian dollars-- or just a little less than $7US.  I like the market.  Sometimes it's kind of silly because you see dead animals and lots of rotting garbage.  I try not to go into the meat area because I almost threw up once because it can smell funny, too.   But I like the market.

And oh!  One more thing.  White people usually don't like going to the market because the sellers give them higher prices than they would give Haitian people.  But I got smaller prices than my sisters.  For example-- I bought nailpolish for 5 Haitian dollars, Sanndy had to pay 7.  I bought lip gloss for 3Haitian dollars each, and Sanndy had to pay 5 each.  Wow.  I think that's good.  I think that means I am a good negotiator. My mom says I am.

Love, Nia

Ticket to Ride

Once, my dad taught me to play Ticket to Ride.  You play with trains, cards, tickets, and a game board.  There are different colored cards, different tracks, and different cities.  In order to win, you need the most points.  To make the most points, you can make the longest track, put down the most trains, and connect the most cities.

I like Ticket to Ride because it teaches us our colors, math, to plan, geography, and strategy.

Bye.

Love,
Nia

"Wedding!"

Saturday I was in a wedding.  I was the ring bearer-- the BRIDE ring bearer.  I held a little boy's hand.  I used my Halloween dress from when I was a bride on Halloween two years ago. 

We have been friends with the bride for three years now.  We met her in Pinchinat.  She introduced us to the groom.  I don't know how they met. 

My sister, Wildarne, was the flower girl with a girl from the bride's family.  The other girl's name was Widline. 

The bride's name was Kameta and the groom's name was Jephte, but everyone calls him, "Mono."  I don't remember what the little boy's name was.

That's all for now!

Love Nia

Crafts

Hello.

I really enjoy crafts.  It's one of my most favorite things to do.  Another one of my favorite things to do is read, but I want to talk about crafts today, not reading.

These are some of the crafts I've made recently.  I will explain them as I go along.

This is a treasure box I made.  It is made out of a cigar box, paper, glue, glitter, gemstones, and seaglass.  And colored duct tape.

This is it opened.

This is a book I made out of two really hard pieces of cardboard, string, beads, paper, stamps, glue and a pencil.

This is a piece of paper that I put in it for the inside of the cover.  I made it by crumpling up paper, then uncrumpled it and passing ink over it.

These are the paper and cardboard beads I am making.  I make them out of glue, sticks, and paper or cardboard.  After they are made, we glaze them.

This is my underwater scene.  It's an example of painting with paper.  I learned about my mom's aunt, Diana, who did this a lot.  I also learned about it in a book called, "Henri Matiss: Drawing with Paper."   He mostly painted, but when he got old, he couldn't paint.  So then he started drawing with paper.  His assistants would paint the background.  He cut out shapes in bed. And then his assistants tacked them to the wall and moved the position until he liked it.  I named this one, "Ocean Reef."

This is my tree I made the same way.  I named it, "Scrap Tree."

This is a piggy bank I made out of a Pringles can, the paper that I had under my watercolors when I paint, and colored packing tape.

This is a bracelet I made with the "ladder bracelet method."  I used wooden beads, paper beads that I made from paper I stamped, and elastic string.  The paper beads I made are falling apart on the ends, so we have to be careful.  Now I know how to make them better.

 This is an anklet that I made out of some paper beads that my mom made.  Since it is green and red, my mom called it, "Rockstar Christmas."  But I didn't understand and so I have been calling it "Rasta Christmas."

I have other crafts that I am going to make soon, so if you like crafts, be sure to come back again sometime to see what I've made.

Love,
Nia

Horses

Dear my friends,

I am learning about horses in my language arts book. They told me to write a story about something I'd like to learn more about. And I wrote a story about horses.

Here is how it goes:



Horses
I wish I could ride a horse. They are fast and fun. They are mammals. The name of how they walk is trot and the name of how they run is gallop. The name of how they talk is neighing and whining. Did you know a male horse is called a stallion and a female horse is called a mare? And did you know a young male horse is called a colt and a young female horse is called a filly? There is lots more to learn.

Love,
Nia

Schneider

Schneider is my little brother. He is one. He is walking now and he can hold a bottle by himself. He's really cute.

I am going to put some pictures of him and a video up.




Enjoy!

Love,
Nia

The rest of the book.

Hello everybody.

This is rest of my new book. We were supposed to do a page a day and then some days we had to skip school and some days our internet didn't work. Because it's working now we are just going to post the rest.

My mom laminated the pages and we got it bound into a real book in Jacmel, so now we can use it just like any other book! But only upstairs. Because it might get lost or ruined downstairs.


Thanks for keeping up. I am going to write another book in the series, but for now I am going to work on the game I am inventing called, "Adventure Dolls" so it might be a while.

I think that's it for today.

Love,
Nia

PS-- Leave me a comment about what is your favorite chapter and what is your favorite illustration.

PPS- My mom thinks the best illustration is chapter six. She doesn't have a favorite chapter yet.

Chapters Two and Three

Here's more! I am surprising you with two more chapters today.




Thanks for keeping track. Hope you like these. I will put up at least one more chapter tomorrow. Be careful, because it's about to get really scary.

Table of Contents and Chapter One

Click on pictures to start reading the story.



Chapter two will be up tomorrow.

John and Jack's Horrible Vacation coming soon!

Hi!

I just wanted to say that I am trying to make a book series about two cousins. I already made one book in the series called, "John and Jack's Horrible Vacation, Book 1: The Beach."

There are 8 chapters in this book. Every school day (which is Monday-Friday) I am going to post a new chapter on my blog. I already wrote the book, I am just working on illustrating it.

This is just the cover.


Hope you can see my book.

More tomorrow!

Love,
Nia