February 2014 – Guyana Times International

Assuria Invitational tennis tourney starts Friday

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

The Guyana Tennis Association (GTA) will serve off its 2014 season with the second annual Assuria Insurance Invitational Classic. The competition, which was created in 2013, is the brainchild of the Surinamese Insurance Company under the management of Dick Wesenhagen, who, being an avid tennis player, made a commitment to sponsor the tournament on an annual basis. It will feature the top four players in each of the main singles categories- Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles and Men’s Over-35 Singles. The format of the tournament for each category is round-robin. The…

West Demerara leg of Jagan Memorial Cycling set for Sunday

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

With the month of March just a matter of days away, organisers of the Cheddi Jagan three-stage memorial cycling event are busy laying the groundwork for the hosting of the annual activity. National cycling coach and chief organiser, Hassan Mohamed, on Tuesday informed the media that the West Demerara leg will be staged on Sunday, the Berbice leg on March 9 and the Essequibo road race on March 23. Sunday’s highly anticipated race will start in front of the Wales Police Station at 08:00 hours, proceed to Bushy Park, Parika,…

Contrasting victories for Agricola, Soesdyke Falcons

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

Agricola Red Triangle made an exciting return to competitive football on the East Bank on Monday when they edged Grove Hi Tech 2-1 in the feature game of a double-header as play in the Stag Beer sponsored East Bank Football Association (EBFA) Division One League continued at the Grove Playfield. Grove, also fielding a team in the Guyana Football Federation’s Premier League with provision for only their Under-21 players to be exposed at the East Bank level, went into the rubber a confident unit with much more playing hours under…

Sculptures from National Collection on show at Castellani House

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

Part 1 It is not surprising that almost all of the sculptures in the National Collection are made out of wood, arising from the fact that accessibility to material is a necessary criterion for artists and no doubt wood sufficed in this heavily-forested land. It is also evident that sculptures in the National Collection predominantly emulate the human figure, ranging from the representational to the abstract in all manner of expression. The oldest known Guyanese sculptor, Cedric Winter (1902-1974) is yet to be represented in the National Collection. The oldest-dated…

Guyanese-born activist receives Canada’s national ‘Caring Award’

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

Narine Dat Sookram, Founder of ACTIVE VISION Charity Association and host of the award-winning weekly community radio show, Caribbean Spice, has received the Governor General’s Caring Canadian Award. The award recognises outstanding individuals who have volunteered their time to help others in creating a more intelligent and caring nation. The Lieutenant Governor, The Honourble David C. Onley, O Ont., presented the honour to Sookram and 21 other recipients at Queens Park, Toronto, Ontario last Wednesday February 19, 2014. “I am always honoured to be recognised, especially when it is from…

Mental processing

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

Satiricus was relieved beyond belief. Here it was for all these years − more years that he liked to think about – he’d been beating up on himself for being such a dummkopf. It had surfaced as far back as nursery school when he just couldn’t count from one to two – after a whole year. It wasn’t much different for the rest of his school life. His mother had told him it wasn’t his fault. The nurse had dropped him on his head soon after he was born. But…

The forest and the trees

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

Satiricus was ecstatic. As he’s confessed before, when he was a small boy, he’d always hoped to be a lawyer. Using all those fancy words, like “sine die”, and “sine qua non”; jumping up and shouting “incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial!!” (Young Satiricus had seen Perry Mason on TV) …and more to the point, earning the big bucks, had made lawyering his lodestar. Only his miserable grades at CSEC had stood in his way. So he’d done the next best thing – become a news hack where his editor could yell how…

‘Funky fabulous’ tie-dye collection

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

No fashion statement is as loud as the splendour of bursting colours and bold patterns of tie-dye. Capturing the beauty of tie-dye in her recent collection, local designer Tracy Douglas lends a certain rainforest mystique to her colourations in her textile designs. “All the pieces I created are unique. I have been so motivated to tie-dye and paint for over 26 years because each garment always has its own character. After dyeing a piece I can’t wait for it to cure so I can see how it has turned out,…

Picturesque Potaro River

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

A journey along the Potaro River reveals scenic views of mountains, dense forest and stunning waterfalls. A tributary of Essequibo River, the source of the Potaro is in the Mount Ayanganna area of the Pakaraima Mountains in the North Rupununi savannahs. Majestic waterfalls are found on the Potaro River, most notable being Kaieteur and Tumatumari Falls. Below Kaieteur Falls are Amatuk and Waratuk Falls. In the 1930s, the Denham Suspension Bridge, also known as the Garraway Stream Bridge, was constructed over the Potaro River in an area known as Garraway…

Dividing…

February 28, 2014 TIMES INT'L

…the Republic Distinguished professor of history Dr Clem Seecharan, in his lecture commemorating our attainment of Republican status, advised we mustn’t sweep the discussion of relations between the different races/ethnic groups under the carpet. We couldn’t agree more. But it’s just as important not to encourage the discussants to gratuitously inject divisive elements into the conversation. We must use the discussion to encourage a common destiny and head off fissioning, such as unfolding in the Ukraine right now. This thought was prompted by a letter from a member of “The…