| A 16-year-old Akawaio girl from Region Seven won the Miss Amerindian Heritage pageant early yesterday morning.However, the emphasis on the LCDS sucked the excitement and cultural bliss out of the pageant, and brought on fatigue not only to the audience but to the pageant’s contestants who stumbled through tedious questions.Amerindian Heritage Queen, Nadanie Jerry,Cheap Jerseys For Sale, is congratulated by Ministers Pauline Sukhai (on her right) and Desrey Fox (on her left), while being surrounded by the other contestants.In the end, Nadanie Jerry, a resident of Waramadong Village in the Upper Mazaruni, survived the “low carbon” onslaught and won the crown, which is handed out every two years by the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs.Jerry, a student of President’s College, who aspires to become a surgeon,Cheap Jerseys Store, won for herself a scholarship to attend the University of Guyana, a motorcycle, $150, 000 cash, and other prizes. But she was not a front runner to win the pageant; in fact, she was among the least favoured.But once she was placed in the Top Six, she was the only one who mastered the final question, and she read (not to be confused with REDD, Reduced Emissions from Deforest…whatever) the answer as if it was crammed into her head.She was asked to define the LCDS and to list the strategy’s three main components. She said the LCDS was a vision and plan of the government to protect the rainforest while seeking payment for the services these forests provide so development could take place in Guyana.She listed the three main components as adumbrated in the strategy paper: Investment in low carbon economic infrastructure; Investment in and employment in low carbon economic sectors; and Investment in communities and human capital. She was correct on paper, but, huh?“I don’t have a clue about the low carbon thing, but she sounded good and so I just clap away,” said one patron at the end of the pageant.The contestant who was a big miss from among the group of finalists was Sara Henry from Region Two. For her talent piece, she chose to do a dramatic poetry entitled “This Low Carbon Thing” that best describes the confusion on the minds of Guyanese and her native people, who mostly live in the interior, about the LCDS. She made fun of the fact that President Bharrat Jagdeo, the main proponent of the LCDS, was using big words like “low carbon trajectory” on people who are from the “bush.”Even the hosts of the pageant had to beg the indulgence of the audience when some of the contestants just could not understand the questions or did not know the answer.When Unita Thomas, the Patamuna delegate from Region Eight, was asked what is REDD,Cheap Jerseys, and whether REDD was a component of the LCDS, and what REDD was expected to accomplish, loud sighs of “Oh gawd” came from the audience.However, the 22-year-old school teacher blurted out the answer with ease, and Michella Abrams-Ali, the Amerindian broadcaster who was asking the questions, let down her shoulders with a clear, ‘Whew!”Thomas was eventually named the second-runner up. She was perhaps the most fluent in the question and answer segment before the finalists were chosen. All the others had a general idea, but just could not roll it off their tongues smoothly. It was a tragedy that the pageant became so wrapped up in the LCDS, as in their introductions, the contestants easily put to shame the contestants of the country’s premier beauty pageants when they confidently,China NBA Jerseys, one by one, talked about themselves, their villages and their regions with clarity and poise, entertaining the audience as they went along.REDD, by the way, means Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, and is the mechanisms through which Guyana hopes to be paid for preserving the rainforest.Each of the 10 delegates was asked a question on the LCDS before the final question came and so one would have thought that they would not have had to answer a final question yet still on the LCDS.Before the question and answer segment, the audience was treated to a splendid display of Amerindian culture and folklore. In the talent display segment, the audience was treated to poems, songs,Wholesale Jerseys NFL, and even sacred Amerindian rituals.The contestants were also required to display traditional Amerindian wear and this they did admirably, coming up with unique designs made of materials from their communities.But had the event not been hijacked by the LCDS,Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys, the Miss Amerindian Heritage pageant would have been a perfect display of Amerindian culture, talent and folklore. |
