Culture Box
If Wednesday night’s intelligence segment of the Miss Guyana Universe pageant was the deciding factor as to who would continue on the ‘quest’ for the coveted crown then the battle would definitely be between Rachael Bakker and Jenel Cox.
Contestant number one, Latoya Maraj and contestant number six Nandani Seecharran- she has a face to die for- were two of the other notable performers and they could certainly give Bakker and Cox a run for their money.
“Beauty and brains” were the words that came to mind when we listened to Bakker and Cox as they made their points during the two-hour live television segment on NCN Channel 11. And the fact that there were two other contestants who excelled is a refreshing change from previous competitions.
Don’t get us wrong it is not that other contestants did not put their best feet forward during the question and answer session, it is just that, and this cannot be doubted, Bakker and Cox were above par. The only difficult question is which one was better than the other and that it is hard to decide.
Bakker, a final-year International Relations student at the University of Guyana (UG), did well when she spoke about diplomacy and politics and how she sees herself contributing to these two. Interestingly, going on her word, she makes the best cook-up rice and metemgee in the entire Guyana and she even invited host, veteran journalist Enrico Woolford, to stop by her house to be the judge. Probably her only failure was not really hammering home the serious impact, domestic violence — which was her platform — has on our society with the ever-climbing rate of such acts being committed. However, it is her hope that one day with the help of others domestic violence would be eradicated. Tough call, but she made it.
Cox may have the upper hand- she does not boast about it- as she is not only a past Miss Guyana Talented queen but was also the first runner-up of last year’s staging of Guyana’s Next Top Model. She was quick to tell Woolford that while she is confident of winning the crown she is not over confident as she had a bad experience last year because of her over confidence. Cox, no doubt, was referring to her sore-loser attitude last year when she was tipped out of winning the top model title. Word from the Pegasus where competition was held was that she visibly ‘lost it’ after the results were announced as she figured she had already won.
But the first-year UG student and aspiring criminal prosecutor knows what she is talking about when she highlights her platform, conserving wildlife. And while persons may not agree with her on the issue of shooting suspected criminals if they attempt to escape when being captured you must agree that she was very articulate and as she said, “It is my opinion.” In all fairness to her though, she did later say that if those suspected criminals pulled guns and “started the war first” then the law men have a right to shoot and kill as they would escape and continue to create havoc and take innocent lives.
Other than those mentioned there were a few others who can be proud of their performances but it was obvious from listening to some of those young ladies who are vying to become ambassadors for Guyana that they are just in the line-up to make up numbers. It makes one wonder what was going through the heads of the organisers when they selected some of the contestants. Maybe they needed 15 girls — we think there are too many of them — so come what may they made sure that they got that number.
There were a few contestants who were absolutely horrible in their responses and for one of them there is no doubt that she is still crying over her performance. Hostess Cathy Hughes was forced to complete some of Althia King’s answers for her and still most of what she said made no sense. While she feels that Guyana has the potential to become the “bread basket of the world” – we know that is not happening in a zillion years. Her platform was producing more goods locally but she had no clue as to why this should be done and what were some of the difficulties that would be experienced.
Cianna Persaud, who is a regional information officer, has no idea what her job entails. When asked what a regional officer does she said she gets to visit the other areas in the region. She was quite keen on talking about the Bartica massacre — she is from Bartica — as according to her it demonstrated how family-oriented the community is.
The big disappointment for the night was Lucria Rambalak. We know she is a pageant favourite, but unfortunately for her the answers she gave were just not up to scratch and her robotic and high-school like responses really did not help her during that segment. Rambalak is a well-known dancer and she is a very beautiful young woman but we would be bold enough to say that she just does not have what it takes to become Miss Guyana Universe. But then who are we, certainly not the judges.
President Bharrat Jagdeo would have been proud — we hope he watched the live show — as many of the contestants were touting his low carbon development strategy. It did not sound as if any of them had really read the strategy or even part of it — we haven’t either — but they agreed that Guyana should be paid to protect our forests. Climate change, global warning and low carbon, the president’s favourite terms, were the words of the night for some of the contestants.
Anyway, if you are reading this, don’t be dissuaded from going to the pageant tonight, remember these are just our opinions, tonight we may all get a big surprise when one of those we did not mention eventually walks the National Cultural Centre stage as Miss Guyana Universe. (thescene@stabroeknews.com)
