The Karnaval Parade, by Nia Mangine

Dear Friends,

I got the most votes to tell a story about Karnval.  

Karnaval was very fun.  And long.  So this story is going to be long.  There is going to be a video and a couple of pictures.  This the first time I have a video on my blog. (I think.)

Karnaval is a time of year in Haiti when people like to enjoy themselves.  They dress up and have fun.  These are the masks some of the kids in my family made to dress up.  Some kids didn't.  They all are pretty, but Manita used so many different colors together that hers just ended up turning brown and looking like diarrhea.  Hers is in the front of the picture.

I made a mask for both my doll and I.  This is how we made the masks.  First we printed off shapes for the masks off the internet.  Then we glued them onto pieces of cardboard cereal boxes.  We let the glue dry and then we painted them.  Then we let them dry AGAIN.  And when they were dry, we cut them out and put string on them so we could tie them to our faces.  My dad and mom cut out the eyes with my mom's sharp pocket knife.  That was all, though all the waiting made me a little crazy.

The morning of the Karnaval we were supposed to go to a field trip with IBESR.  They were supposed to come pick us up from our house at 9AM, but they didn't come until 10:47AM.  That was a problem because my parents had bought tickets on a wooden stand to watch the paper mache mask parade with all the kids.  We were supposed to go at noon.  But we didn't get to go, because we were still at the field trip.

At first, what they did at the field trip was to put makeup and glitter all over our faces.  (No makeup for the boys.)  Then they gave us a snack.  It was Tampico and bread with something salty and tomato-y on it.  It was pretty good except for all the onions.  Next they gave us shirts and maracas (Haitian people call them cha-chas) and hats.  Then they took us to the parade.  That is when we figured out we were going to BE in the parade.  But somebody in front of us decided to block the street.  So we went back to the house where we ate the snack and stuff.  There they took some pictures.  We hung out for a little bit there then they announced that the street was unblocked.  We all groaned because we knew it would be a LONG walk ahead.

We ended up walking for a really long time (as we thought we would.)  I stood towards the front and helped hold the sign.  This is me!

The grown-ups that were walking with us, helped us by making a circle around us with their arms to keep us safe.  That way no one could go in or out of our group.  That was important so that we had our space and no kids got lost in the big crowds.  Here they are.

Here is a video of us walking.  It is easy to spot me in the video because I am the only white person in the video.  Another way to know how to spot me in the video is by finding the person who gets knocked on the head.  Poor me!

It was a really long day.  I walked for more than 4 hours!  We didn't get home until after 6PM!  Remember I started the field day at 10:47AM!  And we started walking around 1PM.  There were lots of people in Jacmel for the parade.  There were all kinds of masks.  Here's a picture my mom took from the stand to show some of the animal masks.

But it's not only animal masks in the parade.  They make masks to look like everything.  They have masks that look like boxes of Apollo Soap (one of the brands here), masks that look like Ti Malice margarine.  Even masks that look like big giant rolls of toilet paper.  Maybe Manita should have walked by them in her diarrhea mask. Or maybe she should have walked by the cholera display.  (Cholera is a sickness they have here where you poop a lot!)  Ha, ha, ha!

Here she is.

That's all for now.  I told you it was going to be a long story!

Love,
Nia

Choose your own adventure.

Dear friends,

Now that I am going to blog again for a while, this time you're going to choose your own adventure.  You guys are going to vote for which adventure you want to hear about.  Here are the adventure story options:

1. The Day I Went to Karnaval (this year) and Even Marched in the Parade. (Haiti story)

2.  The new Church on the Beach Playground. (Haiti story)

3.  Our "New" Family Car. (Haiti story)

4.  Our Beach House Family Vacation.  (USA story.)

The choice is yours!  Leave a comment to vote for which story you want me to tell you.  Can't wait to see your votes.

See you later,
Nia

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