MeLeesa breaks ‘Free’

All Work And No Play…: An ensemble that is perhaps more suited to play than work, sports African print in strategic places. A traditional African head wrap completes this outfit.	A gold belt turns up the fashion volume on this already stylish hot pink cocktail dress. Matching hat and shoes complete the ensemble.
This beautiful traditional African-inspired blouse is complemented by a gilded miniskirt.	This flaming hot little cotton number sports contrasting shades of orange, and is accessorized by matching hat.
This short mini-dress modelled by contestant number seven Jenelle Babb is made of brown denim and is creatively accented with bright printed chiffon.	Contestant number three Annalisa Austin puts her best foot forward in this trendy figure hugging hot pink dress.

DANCER, beauty queen, model and now designer, MeLeesa Payne created a fashion tsunami at Guyana Fashion Weekend 2009, showing pieces from her ‘Free’ collection and earning rave reviews in the media.

The Afro-Caribbean collection expresses the feel of the Caribbean with a selection of colourful, loose, and breezy clothing.

Today we take the opportunity of sharing with you some pieces from that collection, modelled by some of the delegates of this year’s Ms. Guyana Talented Teen Pageant.
Enjoy!
Text: Michelle Gonsalves
Photography: Carl Croker
Models: Ruqahah Boyer
Madonna Ghanie
Jennelle Babb
Annalisa Austin
Teneisha Pigot
Criselle Alleyne

Mexican Food Fest…
Three nights of fun and culinary surprises
By Michelle Gonsalves
DELECTABLE appetizers, mouthwatering entrees and scrumptious desserts.
What better way to unwind after a hectic week must have been what many a diner was thinking as they tucked in on the delicious Mexican fare on offer a few Saturday evenings ago, courtesy of the Mexican Embassy here and the Pegasus Hotel where the event was held.

Mexican Chef Mr. Gabriel Jiminez poses next to the buffet on Mexican Food Festival

As Mexican Ambassador, Mr. Ferdinand Sandoval, announced during a press conference two days earlier, some 35 different spices and a whopping more than 20 varieties of pepper would be used in the preparation of the food.

And doing the honours was none other than Mr. Gabriel Jiminez, who was specially brought in from Mexico for the occasion, even though the Pegasus does boast an able resident chef in Mr. Paul Hamilton, who is from England.

To me and my pepper-loving colleague, Vanessa, “more than 20 varieties of pepper” did seem like an awful lot of pepper. So, with this thought aforemost, we headed on down to good old ‘Pegasus’ to see for ourselves if such a feat were at all possible.

Flickering candlelight, a shimmering pristine pool and Spanish music playing softly in the background set the mood for a night of relaxation and culinary enjoyment.

A section of the buffet

I have to admit that Vanessa and I did hedge a bit at the sight of the food. I had been to other food festivals, but the array before us seemed rather intimidating. Items on the appetizer menu included a selection of salsas, guacamole, salads and tortilla chips, along with ‘Tortilla and Black-bean Soup’.

Entrees included ‘Pork in Pipian Verde’, ‘Chicken in Mole (that’s mo-lay) Sauce’, ‘Fish Veracruzan Style’, ‘Tamarind Shrimp’ and ‘Jardinera Rice’. For desert there was ‘Crepe Cajeta’, ‘Corn Cake’, ‘Churros’, ‘Bunellos’ and ‘Flan’.

We were standing around for a while, Vanessa watching me, and vice versa, when Mr. Roberto Garcia, Administrative Attaché at the Mexican mission here, came to our rescue.

“Try this; this is good,” he said, and gracefully ladled some reddish coloured soup into our bowls with the air of an expert.

“What else is good?” piped up Vanessa.

“Go and finish that; then I’ll tell you,” he said, shooing us off to get started.

We excitedly made our way down to our table down at the back of the poolside, chattering as went. Vanessa took the first bite. She smiled. I followed suit. It was simply delicious. Spicy, but not overpoweringly so, with delicious pieces of shrimp and lobster in it. We cleaned our bowls, and with whetted appetites, were soon back at the buffet table.

Mexican Chef Mr. Gabriel Jiminez and Attaché of the Embassy of Mexico in Guyana Mr. Roberto Garcia at the Mexican Food Festival

This time around, we filled our plates with salad, chili, guacamole, tortillas, chicken in mole sauce, Veracruzana fish, tamarind shrimp and the jardinera rice. I also helped myself to a strange-looking yellow sauce that had an appearance like mustard, which the chef, Mr Jiminez warned was “very dangerous.”

We totally ignored the warning, and found out the hard way that he was right! Unlike ours here in Guyana, which, if hot, lets you know instantly, Mexican peppers seem okay at first, but then starts turning on the heat as time goes by. And before you know it, you’re in big trouble!

I tried the chili first. Chili is a spicy stew made from chili peppers, meat, garlic, onions, and cumin. Traditional chili is made with chopped or ground beef. Variations, according to preference or the place where the chili comes from, may substitute different types of meat and may also include tomatoes, beans, or other ingredients. I was not to be disappointed; it was piquant and had a homey and appealing taste to it.

I am not a fan of avocado. Neither is Vanessa. But I quite liked the guacamole, the pleasingly refreshing taste of which was especially delicious when used as a dip for the tortilla chip, as my companion agreed, after she had tried eating it that way. Guacamole is a dish of Aztec origin that is made by mashing ripe avocados and seasoning it with chili peppers, lime, salt and other flavourings.

While many of the ingredients for the dishes were imported from Mexico, the fish used to make the Veracruzana-style Fish ( Pescado à la veracruzana) was our local Red Snapper. This dish is one of the most famous dishes of Veracruz on the Caribbean coast of eastern Mexico. The ingredients and seasonings, according to one culinary reference, show a strong Spanish influence that goes back to Mexico’s colonialization by Spain.

Then we had our chicken in mole sauce. Mole is the generic name for several sauces used in Mexican cuisine, as well as for dishes based on these sauces. Outside of Mexico, it often refers to a specific sauce, which is known in Spanish by the more specific name, mole poblano. Nowadays, the term is used in Mexico for a number of sauces, some quite dissimilar to one another, including black, red, yellow, Colorado, green, almendrado, and pipián. The jardinera rice was simply rice that had been cooked with vegetables, and could be used with the black beans, chicken in mole sauce or any other sauce of one’s choosing.

By now, as you can guess, we’d pretty much had our fill, but it was time for dessert and few people are ever too full for dessert. We had corn cakes, churros and cajeta to choose from. The corn cake was similar in texture to a sponge cake, but was made with corn flour instead of wheat flour, and was especially delicious when eaten with cajeta.

Cajeta is a Mexican confection of thickened syrup, usually made of sweetened caramelized milk. Mexican cajeta is considered a specialty of, and popularly associated with, the city of Celaya in the state of Guanajuato, although it is also produced with the traditional method in several towns of the state of Jalisco, such as Mazamitla and Sayula.

Cajeta is made by simmering sweetened liquid, stirring frequently until it becomes very thick due to evaporation, and caramelized. Though other juices or liquids may be used, milk is the usual base, as was the case with the cajeta we had.

We also put the cajeta on our bunuelos and our fruit salad. Buñuelos are fritters of a mainly Spanish origin. They typically consist of a simple, wheat-based yeast dough, often flavoured with anise, that is thinly rolled, cut or shaped into individual pieces, then fried and finished off with a sweet topping. They are a popular snack in many Latin American countries, the Philippines, and in some, they are traditionally eaten at Christmas. They can also be filled with different fillings.

At one point, Pegasus Activities Manager, Ms. Susan Isaacs, passed us and said: “I hope you order nonalcoholic drinks,” and we just couldn’t figure out whether she was joking or not.

In any case, we ended up having fruit punches, and we were sipping on these huge virgin coladas when the Mexican Ambassador and his wife stopped to greet us and feigned dismay at our choice of drink. “Try the tequila’s,” said Mrs. Salvador in a conspiratorial way. In my mind, I thought: “I’ll do that… next year.”

The festival was part of Mexico’s celebration of their 199th Independence Anniversary. Mexico gained its independence from Spain at the conclusion of the Mexican War of Independence, which started on September 16, 1810.

Mexico finally gained independence with the Treaty of Cordoba, which was signed on August 24, 1821 in Cordoba, Veracruz, Mexico after 11 years of conflict.

The festival was held for three nights, beginning Friday September 11, at the Pegasus Poolside.

The Movement of Man (Part I)
(Extracts of a conversation on the movement of Man with Nalini Mohabir and Juliet Alexander, Georgetown, Guyana, August 28, 2009. Mohabir, born in Canada of a Guyanese father and Trinidadian mother, is doing her Ph D thesis at Leeds University, UK, on the last return ship from British Guiana to India. Alexander, Guyanese-born UK-resident, has a Masters in Documentary Research, and more than 25 years experience in the print and broadcast media. Her dissertation is on the movement of enslaved Africans from the Caribbean to Australia. )

Nalini Mohabir

PP: Man is a gregarious animal. Man is also a migratory animal. In times past, those characteristics were more pronounced than now, but those characteristics are still evident now but less pronounced because the world has become a large global village. The peoples who came from various parts of the world to Guyana – the Indigenous Amerindians, the European adventurers/colonisers, the enslaved Africans, the indentured Chinese, Portuguese, Indians (and others) came to this land Guyana, eventually to bear the identity tag of Guyanese. Now, there is a movement outwards to other lands – The USA, Canada, The UK … movement into what we now label -- a big word -- the Diaspora. There is a claim that there are more Guyanese living abroad than in Guyana.

So we are looking at the movement of Man in the context of the peoples who came to Guyana and the Caribbean, and their movement away from this area. We are about to take a fascinating journey, because Nalini is looking at the last return ship from British Guiana to India, while Juliet is looking at the movement of enslaved Africans from the Caribbean to Australia.

Juliet Alexander

Let’s start with less complex case of Indians coming to Guyana and the return to India by some of them.

NM: Just to contextualise the work that both of us are doing in terms of peoples moving from place to place, it is very important. Fundamental to human history is migration, and when I say migration, I mean all outwards journeys from the first outwards journey from whence all cultural history is formed.

In terms of my own research, I hope it is of some relevance to people in Guyana and to peoples in -- that big word that you used -- the Diaspora. Because within the Caribbean, we are Diasporas, in that we came from other places, and then movement outwards in the 1950s -- the period which I am looking at -- to UK, or back to Africa or to India. All these journeys inform who we are.

In terms of my own work, I became interested because of my aja (my grandfather), Chablall Ramcharan, worked for the Immigration Office under the British colonial authorities, and it was his job to repatriate the last group of ex-indentured labourers from British Guiana back to India in 1955 -- departing September 5, 1955, arrived October 12. Actually, those records are right here in the National Archives, so that’s where my journey began.

PP: Juliet

JA: I am fascinated by all this, and I am actually learning, which is what I love about history… which I love about what you [Petamber] are doing… opening up to our young people, sharing information … which is important …about our history, things our young people may not get in school.

My story is slightly different; I am looking at a group that astonished me while I was working with an absolutely fascinating politician named Bernie Grant, a Guyanese son-of- the-soil who was fascinated by a find of bones on the south-west coast of England. Some remains of bones and the folklore of the area said that they were from slaves who had been shipwrecked and washed ashore. That story fascinated me, so I went down to the archives and went through these enormous books they have there (they make you put on these special gloves), turning those enormous pages, looking and looking for something… some lead, something to induce me, to propel me on. And I found some fascinating stories about people who travelled in ships; who were brought from the Caribbean and placed on floating hulks in London and then sent to Australia. I asked myself who these people were. Then I turned to the ship’s surgeon’s note, because that’s where you get direct and detailed note on the people onboard. Fascinatingly, those notes described the people -- swarthy skin, curly hair, thick nose. There! I’d strucked gold as it were. I started going back and back in the history and then I found my name: Alexander. I found ‘Barringtons’; I found ‘Frasers’…it was one of those chilling moments. I said to myself: ‘What is happening here?’ And I went back and back and back and found the fury, the fury of fighting people who refused to be enslaved; who would therefore fight against their oppressors in the Caribbean. What the slavers would do was just kill them off, but that incensed the local people, who had their morals. So the slavers said to the British: ‘This is your problem; deal with it.’ So, the rebels… the leaders… were brought to England…

PP: You have a timeline here?

JA: My timeline here is coming up to the official end to slavery.

PP: 1834

JA: Yes. This is strange; a hidden history because people were not supposed to be transported anywhere at that time. This is my background, my Masters in History … Documentary Research. So they brought those troublemakers, kept them on these floating hulks, these huge prisons, floating prisons, in England on the Thames and other places and kept them with other vagabonds like the Irish … and then transported them to Australia.

PP: Brings to mind a novel by Fred D’Aguiar – ‘Feeding the Ghosts’ – about the distortions of history; the history of enslaved people at sea. Go on…

JA: As I said, I was really fascinated by all this, and I was fortunate to be asked to present a paper on broadcasting at a university in Australia on Coolangatta. And I went to the archives there and spoke to the people, and they said they knew about it [enslaved Africans brought from the Caribbean to Australia] and that there were drawers and drawers of information on the subject with all the names. The Parliament had notes about them – numerous ugly names by which they called them, because they were troublemakers. It was fascinating; it was all here, all the information. I didn’t know about it, and few people knew about it….

To respond to this author, either call him on (592) 226-0065 or send him an email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com

What’s Happening:
The Guyana Annual magazine is inviting entries to its eight literary competitions namely: Open Story and Open Poetry, Youth Story and Youth Poetry, The Henry Josiah Story-Writing for Children, The Rajkumari Singh Poetry-Writing for Children, Martin Carter Essay (Under-13), Egbert Martin Poetry (Under-13) and to its art and photography competitions. Closing date for entries is September 30, 2009. For further information, please contact me via above.

Abstract Art and Our Human Identity (Part V)
THE RELEASE of the artist from the ancient isolation of his group culture, and also his specific service to it, meant that such artists’ works now could address persons different from their race, group culture, or nationality.

Former President of Guyana, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, with Aubrey Williams at his exhibition of abstract paintings at the Commonwealth Institute in London in 1965

This new cultural prospect had particular human relevance for multi-cultural nations formed by colonialism and diverse immigration, especially North America, Canada, Britain, Guyana, Suriname, and the Anglo-Caribbean to some extent.

Latin America escaped such a broad multi-cultural net by being predominantly of Native Indian, European, and African races, plus millions of mixtures of all three. In fact, Latin America has easily remained the most miscegenated or mixed-blood continent on the face of the earth.

But in all such contemporary cultures of different races, and artists of different races, an interesting and important question arises: To whom do their contemporary artists --painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, musicians -- address their works? Is it to people of their own race and cultural background, or to their nation as a whole? Given the fact that art collectors and art audiences of a particular race or culture have always tended to like ‘other’ ‘ethnic’ or ‘exotic’ art from another race or culture, simply because it is different, and a novelty (witness the popularity of collecting African, Pre-Columbian, Oriental, or various ‘Primitive’ antique works of art by Europeans and North Americans especially, precipitated by the fact that such works, in all probability, cannot, and will not, be made again, since the various circumstances that created them are largely gone, or past), is there, however, a form of art that can address any human, without referring or appealing to their identity as a specific race, of a specific cultural background, and a specific nationality?

Value and function
The permanent value and function of abstract art, for example, is to perform this service. The collecting and display of such art in the possession of professionals from all fields, whether governmental, political, medical, legal, diplomatic, administrative etc, represents a possible similar impartial viewpoint towards the public, which cannot help but always appear in the diverse colour and heritage of their race, culture, and nationality.

However, the permanent artistic method of capturing an educated audience’s attention and memory, whether in painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, music, film etc, resides in the style or form of the work of art in question.

Regardless of what realistic influences or content inspire all various forms of art, in the end, it is its form or stylistic qualities, or the way it is finally put together, that will either define it as relevant only to the race, cultural group or society from which it emerged, or lift it into an elemental or organic sphere of human relevance and intuitive familiarity which projects our collective human identity.

We may criticise such a creative goal as putting local, ethnic, or national culture too much in the background, but why should it be that a local ethnic or national culture cannot transform itself into a representative of our collective human identity?

The form of such a representation was achieved, or partly achieved, in the 20th Century by specific Guyanese novels like ‘The Kaywanna Trilogy’, ‘Shadows Move Among Them’, ‘A Morning at the Office’, and ‘Latticed Echoes’ by Edgar Mittelholzer; ‘To Sir With Love’ by ER Braithwaithe; and ‘Palace of the Peacock’, ‘Heartland’, ‘The Eye of the Scarecrow’ and ‘Tumatumari’ by Wilson Harris.

In Guyanese painting, it would be the abstract paintings of Aubrey Williams, which, between the 1950s and late 60s, achieved the first successful exploration of our human identity by a Guyanese abstract painter.

Aubrey Williams
The emergence of Aubrey Williams as an abstract painter is of importance for several reasons: (i) Such a development meant that a Guyanese advancement from classical European visual art teaching had begun; (ii) that the idea of abstract form was now an important local cultural value, in contrast to habitual realistic content; (iii) that the Guyanese public, or audience, was now being asked to acknowledge and appreciate the relevance and importance of such art nationally; and (iv) that the Anglo-Colonial ‘Mother Country’ of Britain, to which Williams had migrated in the early 1950s, was now also confronted with the unusual decision of an artist from one of its colonies who identified with the eclectic, cosmopolitan abstract style that was creating a revolution in post-War European aesthetics.

These four points are sufficient to reveal the significance of Aubrey Williams as an abstract painter for Guyanese and foreigners. The first fact, and one which affected the full blossoming of Williams’ career as an abstract painter, we should realise, was his almost total professional dependence on Britain and the Anglo-Commonwealth nations.

When Williams arrived in Europe in the early 50s, he witnessed the post-War fervor in cultural development, in which abstract art was playing a major role.

Early in his career, probably too early, Williams also visited the big cities of France, Italy, and Holland where exhibitions by abstract artists were in full swing.

As a well read person, his researches must have told him that neither England nor its Commonwealth countries initiated, or were innovative, in the developing forms of abstract art. None of the initial innovators -- Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Brancusi, Lipschitz ,Boccioni, Balla, Severini, Tatlin, Rodchenko, Malevich, Gabo, or Arp -- of this developing cosmopolitan art form, which explored our human identity, came from England, but from Spain, Italy, France , Russia, Rumania and Switzerland. Except for a few exceptional leading figures in British art, like the 19th Century painters, Turner and Constable; the 20th Century sculptors, Moore and Hepworth; and the abstract painter, Nicholson, English artists remained dominated by Greek classical art found at the British Museum, and did not identify with the vital ‘primitive’ abstract qualities of non-European art from Africa and the pre-Columbian Americas, which played such a major role in creating the best abstract art produced within non-Anglo European nations.

The development of Aubrey Williams as a Guyanese abstract painter was hindered by his relegation to the periphery of the post-war British art world, where abstract art imported and shown in London galleries was promoted as an exclusive affair, and given a fabricated status preserved for ‘advanced’ Metropolitan-born artists only, whereas artists from the ‘colonies’, like the Caribbean and Guyana, were defined as an ‘ethnic group’ within the ‘Mother Country’, and to be mostly shown separately at the Commonwealth Institute, but rarely or never in the larger commercial British art market.

Aubrey Williams came to realise he was being defined by this ‘zoning’, which made him appear unequal, vis-à-vis his European, North American and Latin American peers of abstract art. Moreover, his unusual nascent status in England as the lone abstract painter from the Caribbean ‘colonies’, grouped him defensively with other similar writers and artists who banded together as an ethnic immigrant community; his time now spent in endless meetings, discussions, committees, groups ,etc, meant that the progression of his distinct individual gifts suffered slow contraction.

However, what did Aubrey Williams achieve which marks him as the first distinct abstract painter of Guyana? He grasped the elemental root qualities of Guyana’s raw, unprocessed and organic agricultural and wild terrestrial identity.

Apart from scrumbled paint application and built-up surfaces, which many abstract painters experimented with in the 50s and 60s, Williams’ canvasses of those decades explored the loose painterly expressive relationship of paint to canvas; his lesson to us was rooted in a local rendition of terrain and humble objects affected by the elements; sooty calabashes, various matter bleached by the harsh Guyanese sun, moss, mildew, earth cracked from drought, dark jungle water, white water, cassava, cassareep, pepper, firewood, rocks, sand, etc. These qualities were rendered abstractly and emotionally, without a rigid, regimental application of paint or brushstrokes.

It was not the influence of Amerindian objects or pictographs, but this organic style which brought him recognition and fame at Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada, the ground-breaking International Expo, perhaps one of his finest hours, and revealed Guyana’s ability to produce an exceptional-thinking artist who found the right forms and fluent structures to project and represent Guyana as a contributor to the open-minded civilised concept of the human identity, via abstract art.

The HIV/AIDS mailbox…
What’s a nutritious diet for PLHIV
ARE YOU someone Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) or a caregiver, and at your wits end to determine what constitutes a good diet for such a person?

As the global economic crisis deepens, many PLHIV from low-income households are finding it increasingly difficult to eat the way they should in order to avoid malnutrition, a condition which has devastating effects on HIV.

In this regard, your diet is as good as you select and blend them from among the recommended food groups: Staples, food from animals, legumes and nuts, fruits, vegetables, and fats and oils, and it does not have to be very expensive.

The importance of proper nutrition for PLHIV cannot be over-emphasised, particularly if they are on antiretroviral treatment (ART). One of the important things about nutrition and the use of anti-HIV drugs is that the treatment, Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatment (HAART), is a strong medication with serious side effects. This means that the diet of the person on HIV-medication must be right.

In addition, HIV progressively damages the immune system, which can make a person susceptible (vulnerable) to a range of opportunistic infections leading to conditions such as weight loss, fever and diarrhea, mal-absorption or metabolic disorders. Improving nutrition and maintaining a healthy diet, therefore, has three distinct advantages for the PLHIV, namely:

• Strengthening the immune system

• preventing weight loss or loss of muscle mass; and

• delaying HIV disease progression.

The aim is for the PLHIV to remain productive, and ultimately improve or prolong their quality of life.

Stages of HIV infection
HIV disease progression may be categorised in three stages, namely:

• The early stage, in which the individual does not have any symptoms and has stable weight;

• the middle stage, in which the individual has experienced significant, unintentional or undesirable weight loss as a result of opportunistic infections; and

• the late stage of the disease, in which the individual is considered as having ‘advanced disease progression’ or clinical AIDS. This is when his/her CD4 level has dropped to less than 200 or his CD4 percentage count is less than 14.

The bottom line, however, is that the stage of the infection determines how and just what the person could eat. For as long as there are no ulcers of the throat or mouth, or intestines, no lactose intolerance, or diarrhoeal infections, PLHIV should be encouraged to eat in appreciable quantities.

Increased energy and protein needs
During the early stages of infection, when the person has no symptoms, the main objective is to stay healthy by building stores of essential nutrients, maintaining weight, and preserving a lean body mass by grasping an understanding and appreciation of food safety issues.

Largely, a diet that contains foods that are sufficient in both energy (in the form of carbohydrates and protein) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) is what is needed during this period, since it promotes resistance to opportunistic infections in PLHIV.

To avoid muscle wasting and weight loss, the PLHIV’s nutritional requirements will undergo considerable changes as the disease progresses, namely:

Energy: The PLHV’s energy requirements are increased by 10-15%. In the presence of a fever, acute infection or the need for weight gain, these requirements may be even higher, about 30-50%.

Protein: Protein requirements are increased by about 50%. Extra protein is required to maintain muscle mass and strengthen the immune system.

Micronutrients (vitamins and minerals): Vitamins - essential in helping the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates, proteins and fats to be used in the body to make new tissues.

Minerals - Speed up enzymatic reaction and work as chemical messengers. They also help in converting carbohydrates, protein and fats into energy while providing structure for bones and teeth.

It is important to note that, if (energy) carbohydrate intake is insufficient, the individual’s protein stores will be used to provide the body with energy. When this happens, protein is not available to maintain muscle and strengthen the immune system. This can lead to muscle wasting and increased susceptibility to infection of an already weakened immune system.

Balancing the diet
A healthy nutritious diet is a balanced and varied one, and provides foods in the right amounts and combinations that are safe and free from disease and harmful substances. Foods should be selected from each of the groups listed below, and which, fortunately are all affordable and easily available locally.

The food groups are: Staples, food from animals, legumes and nuts; fruits, vegetables, fats and oils. For graphic examples of what constitutes a healthy balanced nutrition, see the section below which comes to you, courtesy of The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO):

Enjoy a variety of foods. Eating well means eating a variety of foods. No single food contains all the nutrients that our bodies need. Eating a variety of different foods will supply the nutrients that are essential for our bodies

Staple foods
Staple foods should make up the largest part of a meal. These foods are relatively cheap and supply a good amount of energy and some protein. Staples include bread, wheat flour, rice, pasta products (macaroni, noodles); cereals (such as corn, wheat and barley), starchy roots (English potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and yams) and starchy fruit (plantains, bananas and breadfruit). In Guyana we have them in abundance, and what’s more? They’re affordable.

Foods from animals
Foods from animals (meats), as well as dairy products should also be eaten as often as you can afford them. They supply good-quality proteins, vitamins and minerals and extra energy. They will help to strengthen muscles and the immune system.

These foods include all forms of meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy products such as milk, sour milk, buttermilk, yoghurt and cheese. These all contain proteins and some amount of fat. Meat and liver also contain iron which is essential - particularly during pregnancy. Milk - a main source of protein, also contains calcium and fat, and is very important for the diet of the PLHIV, once his body can tolerate it. As far as possible, aim to have at least one glass of milk per day and at least six to eight glasses of pure drinking water.

Legumes and nuts
Examples: Peas, beans, lentils, groundnuts,and soybeans. They are sources of protein, proteins needed to develop and repair the body and also to build up strong muscles. They are also good sources of vitamins, minerals and fibre and help to keep the immune system active. Eat them every day, if possible. When eaten with staple foods the quality of protein is increased..

For households that do not have easy access to poultry and other meat supplies, legumes can be used as a cheaper form of protein than animal foods.

Fruits and Vegetables
These two food groups provide vitamins and minerals, as well as fibre (bulk) to your diet. They are an important part of a healthy and balanced meal and provide micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that keep the body functioning and the immune system strong. They are especially important for helping PLHIV fight HIV-infection. Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables - oranges, cherries, apples, tamarinds, melons, mangoes, pineapples, bananas, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, calaloo, as each one provides different vitamins and minerals).

Fats, oils and sugars
Fats, oils and sugar are good sources of energy and can help one gain body weight, which can be particularly important for those living with HIV/AIDS. They also add flavour to food, thereby stimulating appetite. Fats supply twice as much energy as carbohydrates, help the body to use other nutrients such as vitamins, A,D,E and K.

The fats and oils easily available locally include butter, lard, margarine, cooking oil (vegetable, coconut soya and palm oil), mayonnaise, coconut cream and avocados.

Sugars and sugary foods include honey, jam, table sugar, cakes and biscuits, peanut butter.

As usual, we urge that if you have any further questions, or would like to share your experiences with us, to please contact us at waronhiv@yahoo.com, or send your letters to: HIV/AIDS Mailbox, Guyana Chronicle, Lama Avenue, Bel Air Park, Georgetown.

Mary Travers and Juan Almeida Bosque
-An appreciation
By Norman Faria
AT FIRST it seems out of place to favourably link the lives of two seemingly different persons such as Juan Almeida Bosque and Mary Travers.

Juan Almeida Bosque, also known as Commander of the Revolution