-plans being busy as a bee
THE GRACEFUL and self-confident Kara Lord, reigning Miss Guyana Universe, who represented Guyana at the Miss Universe pageant last month in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has big plans for her future, although still settling in to routine life after a hectic three weeks in Brazil. Kara spoke with the Guyana Chronicle about her experiences in Sao Paulo, and about some of her tentative plans for the year ahead.
The 23-year-old heartthrob has no desire to lie low, as is seemingly the trend in Guyana when beauty queens return from international assignments. Instead, Kara wants to remain active throughout her year-long reign.
She said: “If there are national activities, Miss Guyana Universe should be involved. The pageant is not about beauty; any queen should be able to make a contribution to society, and should be able to lead by example.”

Meaningful experience
Though disappointed that Guyana did not place in the top 15, she says the pageant was a meaningful experience for her.
For Kara, the excitement started as soon as she landed in Sao Paulo.  Stepping out in temperature at 10 degrees Fahrenheit, Kara began to regret that a jacket was not among the pieces in her four-bag luggage. Fortunately, she was soon rescued by representatives of the Miss Universe organization who had come to receive her.
Despite overlooking the weather difference, though, Kara was otherwise quite prepared; and going to Brazil wasn’t a large culture shock for her, because she had done some research.
Kara ensured that she introduced herself to all the girls, and conversed with them at every opportunity of the ample time the delegates had to socialize during the three days encompassing the registration process.

Living the tough life
The life of a Miss Universe delegate in the lead-up to the competition is a tough one. There are events to attend and tours and public appearances to make, creating severe restrictions on time.
In the resulting scenario, sleep becomes a precious commodity, and if a delegate gets five hours of that luxury, she could count herself lucky. There was always somewhere to go, what with the horseracing, samba sessions and other activities.
Why Samba?  “I think they wanted to inculcate in us a part of the culture of Brazil,” Kara said. She was one of 24 girls selected from a total of 89 delegates to play a football match; but she had met before with some of our football players and had gotten some pointers.

Another challenge of being in the competition was that – no surprise here – the delegates always have to look the part. That means always being in full makeup, with elegant hair and clothing. Kara handled this by waking up an hour ahead of time to do her makeup. She is not one who fusses about her hair; she just lets it be, not even wrapping it before sleeping. Approaching pageant time, she decided to forgo the weave and work with her naturally lustrous hair in a move, she says that drew many compliments.

Few disappointments
There were, however, a few disappointments for Kara. One of them was that, this time around, the auction that is customarily a feature of the Miss Universe pageant – in which the delegates bring treasures from their respective countries to auction off for charity – was not featured. She had carried along a beautiful necklace from Kings Jewellery World to be auctioned. Moreover, there was no high-glamour fashion event, but the delegates organized a mini fashion show. “They give us this top we had to wear and we had to accessorize it. I don’t know if that was some kind of test to see our personal style.”
Kara greatly enjoyed the National Costume aspect of the competition, which she found amusing that many of the girls were costumed as birds, with one even having a beak on her forehead. Kara’s costume was a beautiful Derek Moore creation which resembled the flow of the majestic Kaieteur Falls.
In the final week of her sojourn in Brazil, Kara’s rehearsal period was most comfortable. She explained: “The atmosphere was pretty friendly. I (had) expected it to be pretty hostile, (with) people snapping at you; but it was pretty friendly.” She continued: “I knew what I had to do, so I wasn’t stressing about it. I did get nervous, but I have a way of talking to myself (when I have) to focus. I had to remember that it was not personal, but that I was doing it for my country.”

Work for the reign
Over the course of her year’s reign, Kara hopes to continue to work for her platform – cervical cancer. She has also been talking about breast cancer, and wants to work in the area of HIV/AIDS education. Kara will, moreover, continue being a blood donor, and she encourages others to join her and give safe blood to save lives.
For now, she is busy answering the question: ‘What was it like being on the Miss Universe stage?’ Curious persons enquire every day.