When she was crowned Miss Amerindian Heritage 2007, 21-year-old Odessa Paul achieved a lifelong dream: to model on the stage of the National Cultural Centre and to be crowned a queen at the same time.
Even as she was climbing tress and swinging from vines in the forested mountainous area of Paramakatoi in Region Eight (Potaro/Siparuni), Odessa told us, she always wanted to be a queen. Now that she has achieved this, she is still undecided on whether she will enter other pageants but says she will leave the door open.
Even though she knew she wanted to be a queen someday, Odessa said she waited until she was recommended by her villagers to enter the regional pageant. After being crowned Miss Region Eight she automatically became a delegate of the Miss Amerindian Heritage pageant.
“When I was announced as queen I felt a great sense of accomplishment because it was one of my dreams materializing,” the new queen told The Scene recently. She said she also felt a sense of relief once she had the crown on her head. She said training for the pageant was hectic and she was forced to take time off from her teaching job. “But it was fun sometimes because I got to meet girls from all the regions and even though we were competing for one crown it did not feel that way. While we were staying at the hotel, we were always very helpful to each other. We were very calm and always encouraging each other,” Odessa said.
It does not mean that Odessa was not confident of winning during the run up for the pageant as she said she had some amount of confidence in her ability to win the crown. “I was confident of wining but I was not one hundred percent confident because I never like to be over confident. Being over confident can affect your performance,” she wisely added. On pageant night, she did not receive the same amount of crowd support as some of the other delegates, as many persons from her region did not attend because of the distance from the city and the cost of travelling. “But I knew their prayers and support were with me and that kept me going.”
Growing up in Paramakatoi
Odessa said she was actually born in Tumatumari, located in the same region, but would have moved to Paramakatoi at around age five so all of her childhood memories are of Paramakatoi. The community can be described as large compared to other Amerindian communities since it has a population of about 2,000, she said. Most other Amerindian communities are smaller.
“Growing up in Paramakatoi
