Pepperpot epaper 10 30 2016

Living one brush stroke at a time â–ş Centre

Untitled by Pekahiah James

- Painter Pekahiah James

II

By Svetlana Marshall

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

against persons with leprosy

Leprosy is not curable.

It is a disease that can be caught by simply touching someone who is affected. It causes your fingers, toes and limbs to drop off; it is a curse handed down

by God for past sins.

None of the above is true, but these myths associated with leprosy have been around for generations past and persist today and serve to compound treatment for those affected.

The fact is that leprosy can be cured and does not pass on from one human to the other as easily as the myths suggest.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes leprosy as a chronic disease caused by a slow multiplying bacillus or a rodshaped bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae.

Due to the nature of the disease, which

is also known as the Hansen’s disease, it is transmitted via droplets from the nose and mouth during close and frequent contacts with untreated cases, WHO explained.

However, it takes approximately five to eight years to develop while symptoms can take as long as 20 years to appear.

If left untreated, it causes nerve damage in three main areas of the body – the face, hands and feet.

As such, the sensory and motor functions within these areas are compromised and may result in the inability to feel and or move the parts of the body that are affected.

In 2000, the disease, which dates back to the Biblical days, was eliminated as a public health problem globally with a prevalence of less than one case per 10, 000 persons,

Arjoon, one of the many persons being treated for Leprosy at the Public Health Skin Clinic

Here in Guyana, leprosy is not a public health threat, as the country has achieved the elimination target of less than one case per 10, 000 persons. However, there are persons living with the disease in the country.

Forty-year-old Arjoon (not real name) is among the small batch of Guyanese diagnosed with the disease.

Arjoon believes that he may have contracted the disease as a child but it was only in his mid-20s while working the Barbados that he realised that something was terribly wrong.

“I used to sit with my hands to my knee, and eventually, I found that the knee started getting numb, and start getting a think flesh, never use to feel no pain at all,” he recalled.

He subsequently sought medical attention but after more than three years of undergoing treatment for a “perceived infection,” Arjoon migrated to St. Maarten, where he changed jobs and sought further medical help.

It was in St. Maarten that Arjoon was told by a doctor that he may have leprosy.

By then, he was experiencing additional symptoms, including discolouration of the skin, fever, rashes and boils about the body.

In 2011, he returned to Guyana, after it had proven difficult for him to acquire the required treatment in St. Maarten.

However, it took him some years before he was referred to the Public Health Skin Clinic by a private doctor. It was there that he was diagnosed with leprosy by the doctors operating out of a building in the compound of the Palms Geriatric Home on Brickdam in the capital city Georgetown.

Currently on the Multidrug Therapy Turn to page III ►►►

according to WHO. Official figures from 138 countries from six WHO regions show the global registered prevalence of leprosy to be at 176, 176 cases at the end of 2015.

During the same year, 211, 973 new cases were reported, WHO stated on its official website.

In the first photo, Daniel displays his now shortened fingers. He had suffered from the severe form of Leprosy called Multibacillary Leprosy before being cured. On the left, Arjoon displays his hands. He has managed to secure medical attention before the disease could have developed into its latter stages and currently battles with the milder version called paucibacillary leprosy (Photos by Samuel Maughn)

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016 ◄◄◄ From page II

(MDT), Arjoon said he is on the road to recovery. “The knee, it got back better. Two weeks now the boils started coming on my face, but other than that I am normal, normal. But when it come up on me, the pain makes you cry like a baby,” he said.

The team of doctors and nurses at the Skin Clinic were able to treat Arjoon before the disease could have further developed, hence Arjoon has little or no disability.

However, Daniel (not real name), another patient at the Public Health Skin Clinic, was not so fortunate. Though cured, he is battling with the deformities that come with the disease during its latter stages.

For many years, he had noticed a discoloration in his skin but the thought of leprosy had never crossed his mind, maybe “lota” but never leprosy.

There were times when those pale spotted areas on his body would become numb but it was something he had taken for granted up until 2010 when he became severely ill while working in the fishing industry.

For three years he consulted with private medical practitioners and was repeatedly told that he was experiencing “kidney failure.” His ill health had cost him his job.

The father of one had opted to drive for another company, but before he knew it, he was out of a job for a second time after continuously vomiting blood and developing ulcers on his hands. “I end up going at West Dem Regional Hospital, and they detected it and refer me to the Skin Clinic,” he said.

Eventually, in 2010 Daniel was diagnosed with leprosy by the doctors at the Skin Clinic.

CURED After more than two years of undergoing treat-

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ment at the government run skin clinic, Daniel has been cured of leprosy. However, he was cured at a time when the disease had significantly advanced, resulting in deformity. Due to the loss of tissue, his fingers and toes have become shortened and deformed.

“On the left side of my foot I have no toes. On the right side the toes are shortening, and I have ulcers on all two foot. I have an ulcer on my elbow – the bone actually is out and so you don’t have to ask about the pain, it is terrible,” he explained while sitting in the building that houses the Skin Clinic.

Now, he is advising persons to know the symptoms associated with leprosy. “If you see any mark, any mark, and you know you haven’t gotten a scratch from somewhere but you seeing a discolouration or feeling numbness about your body, seek public medical attention now.

“If I had gotten this diagnosis early, maybe, maybe, I would have still had my toes, and my fingers would not have been

shortening,” he said.

Daniel is among the millions that have been cured from leprosy after undergoing MDT. In fact, more than 14 million leprosy patients have been cured over the last 20 years, according to a booklet on the Guidelines for the Control of Leprosy in Guyana which was published in November 2013.

DISCRIMINATION Though Daniel has been cured and receives the support of his immediate family, he is ever so often discriminated against in public spaces and even by his own relatives.

“Everywhere you turn…you go to the market, people look at you and turn up there face, and walk away.

“I was in a bus one day, and a guy look at me and said I looked like an alligator and passed me and went down to the back of the bus. And when he came out, he turned to the conductor and said I looked like I have AIDS,” Daniel said as he broke down in tears.

“I have been discriminated against by my own brother. He doesn’t even look in my direction.

“Since I got sick, he turned his back on me,” he added as he tried to fight the tears from flowing.

The neglect and discrimination experienced by Daniel has caused him to develop Turn to page V ►►►

IV

(BBC) It is strange enough that people can get better when given pills that do not contain any actual medicine. Even more peculiarly, the same may be true of animals.

The placebo effect is a strange and still not entirely understood quirk of medicine.

On the face of it, someone's health should not improve if they are given a simple sugar pill instead of a tablet carrying a drug. But sometimes it does.

It is just about possible to imagine that the placebo effect stems from a strong faith in the power of doctors to cure us. If that is the case, then the effect would be limited

to our species – after all, animals do not really put their faith in veterinarians when they are sick. And, indeed, many scientists assume placebo effects are not seen in animals.

But not all scientists do. Some say there is evidence that placebo effects can and do play out in our pets.

It is not actually that uncommon to use placebos in animals. When a new animal therapy is on trial, scientists often test it using a similar procedure for evaluating human therapies. They give some animals the therapy and others a placebo, so they can fully assess the potency of a new therapy.

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

"Initially we sought out to use the placebo just as a baseline," says Karen Muñana, a neurologist at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine in the US, who studies epilepsy in dogs.

"But then in the evaluation of that data we realised that the dogs that had been on placebo had shown improvement in their seizure frequency compared to before we started the study," she says. "Their seizure frequency went down."

The data suggested that the dogs on placebo treatments were doing better than they had been doing before the trial. Their condition was improving even in the absence of medicine. They seemed to be displaying a placebo effect.

Why would this be the case?

Muñana thinks that several factors could be at play.

One of the most obvious – but often over-

How much do dogs understand about their owners?

(Credit: Image Source/Alamy)

Dogs do not necessarily understand what vets do (Credit: Grossemy Vanessa/Alamy)

looked – factors is that disease naturally changes in an animal over time.

"Epilepsy is a waxing and waning disease with a natural course," says Muñana.

"What happens in epilepsy is that owners will seek care when their dog's disease – when their seizures in this case – are at the worst."

This means it is possible that the dogs in Muñana's epilepsy trial were experiencing particularly intense symptoms as the trial began. Even if they had not been put in the trial, their condition might have improved naturally over the course of a few weeks. If this is the explanation for the trial results, then the dogs were not really experiencing a placebo effect.

But this is not the only possible explanation. Just the effect of knowing that their animal is taking part in a drug trial can change the behaviour of a dog owner, says Muñana.

"The owner's perception [is] that the dog is being monitored better, watched better," she says. "Perhaps because they're in the study [the owner is] more likely to give those medications that are being used to treat the underlying disease."

Again, this would imply the animal Turn to page XIII ►►►

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016 ◄◄◄ From page III

a love for animals, mainly chickens. “I have no friends. I have no friends.

“I need company but even when I go to buy chicken feed, I am discriminated against. One time this woman laughed at asked if I had AIDS.” Head of the National Leprosy Control Programme, Dr. Nikita McKenzie, who manages the Skin Clinic, said removing the stigma and discrimination surrounding leprosy remains an uphill task for health workers not only in Guyana but across the world.

Contrary to popular beliefs, Dr. Mckenzie said leprosy is not a curse that causes parts of the body to fall off; rather, it is a curable disease that cannot be transmitted by simply touching someone with leprosy.

“It is not one of the diseases that you should fear. It is curable,” she emphasized while explaining that within days of being treated the patient can no longer transmit it.

KNOW THE FACTS Instead of putting up a barrier, Dr. McKenzie believes that Guyanese should become knowledgeable about the disease.

“It is a disease that affects all organs except the brain, the lung and the spinal cord.

It affects every other area. It can go from just the skin patches to the raised infiltrated skin lesions all the way up to the infiltrated areas of the face, such as cheek bone. It could also cause flattening of the nose bridge, loss of eye brows, hair loss to the eye lashes. It can also cause blindness if complications get so far, if left untreated leprosy,” she explained.

However, if detected during its early stages, Dr. McKenzie said the many of the deformities could be prevented or even reversed.

In an effort to raise greater awareness, detect and treat patients, Dr. McKenzie with the help of Dr. Lorraine Katon, five nurses and a medical technologist attached to the skin clinic and by extension the National Leprosy Control Programme, has been conducting outreaches in several regions

in addition to the weekly clinics held at the Palms.

Clinics are also held monthly in Skeldon, Port Mourant and New Amsterdam in Region Six; and at the West Demerara Regional Hospital and Parika Health Centre in Region Three. The team also visits the Lodge, David Rose, Grove and Soesdyke Health Centres in Region Four, in addition to the Linden Hospital Complex in Region 10.

During these outreaches, Dr. McKenzie and team look for the usual signs, and once a diagnosis is made, the patient is placed on a six month or one year treatment plan depending on the severity of the disease.

The treatment is a Multidrug therapy (MDT), which has been made available

by WHO free of charge to all patients worldwide since 1995. However, some patients for varying reasons either refuse the medication or stop taking it abruptly – decisions Dr. McKenzie strongly advises against.

It was noted too that once a leprosy patient is identify, family members who have been in close and constant contact with the individual are screened.

“But we not only examine the patient but family members and persons who have been in close contact with the patient because leprosy is not a disease of the person but of the family…Once a family member is showing signs we treat them as well, and cure them of the disease before it could even advance,” she explained.

As of September, 2016 the programme registered approximately new 31 cases, and according to Dr. McKenzie the “numbers are still going up.” The youngest patient is six-years old and the oldest 64.

It was pointed out that in 2015, 29 new cases were recorded, 28 in 2014, 25 in 2013, 16 in 2012, 23 in 2011 and 26 in 2010. Between 1996 and 2009, the lowest number of new cases (21) was recorded in 1996 while the highest (53) was recorded in 2003.

“From the population that we have been able to reach, as in part of Regions Three, Four, Six, Five and 10, Region Six has been showing to have a lot of cases,” Dr. McKenzie pointed out while noting too that due to the frequency in which clinics are held in Georgetown, a high number of cases also originate from Region Four.

The country’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud has also expressed concern about the rising number of cases.

“We were averaging about 22 per year, but this year it has bounced up back a little bit and we noticed some newer and younger people who are also affected, and many of the cases have links to the older cases,” Dr. Persaud explained.

As such, maintaining surveillance around the contacts such as immediate members within the family is important, he said.

Guyana, however, is experiencing some limitation in its quest to combat the disease, the CMO said, explaining that specially trained technicians to do the smears are needed.

V “There are two types. There is a multibacillary form of leprosy where you can easily identify the organism, and then there is a paucibacillary which is harder to detect.

So the skill of the technician is very important to identify these cases,” he explained.

And so to complement the work of the skin clinic, the National Leprosy Control Programme with technical support from the Pan-America Health Organisation (PAHO) hosted a training programme last September to develop the capacities of health care workers to detect, treat and manage leprosy.

The one week training session, which attracted participants from Regions Four, One, Seven, Eight and Nine, was facilitated by US Occupational Therapist Linda Lehman and Leprologist Dr. Jaison Barreto of Brazil with the support of local doctors.

Minister of Public Health, Dr. George Norton said the 20 healthcare workers who attended the training are now better positioned to detect, treat and manage cases of leprosy, and also prevent and or minimize impairments in the identified regions.

He said the training forms part of a movement by the Public Health Ministry to bring the country in line with Global Leprosy Strategy 2016-2020.

The strategy, themed, “Accelerating towards a leprosy-free world,” aims to revive efforts for leprosy control and to avoid disabilities, particularly among children affected by the disease.

It focuses on the need to sustain expertise and increase the number of skilled leprosy staff, to improve the participation of affected persons in leprosy services, and to reduce visible deformities – also called grade-2 disabilities (G2D). Removing the stigma associated with the disease, is also key on the agenda.

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

The Shade is Real

‒ What your foundation look says about your personality Are you a contouring queen, a barefaced beauté, or a glowing goddess?

Thanks to revolutionist and songstress Alicia Keys women have chosen to face the day sans makeup. But does she really brave her world barefaced? No...she doesn't.

First and foremost, she never skipped a proper skincare routine. She braced the day with minimal makeup, using a primer instead of foundations, and focusing on specific key areas of enhancements. So... even the #nomakeup trend actually involves makeup, because let's face it - makeup is life!

However, wearing the bare minimum to prove that you take yourself too seriously to care what you look like, can translate as counterproductive, lazy, and just plain rude. How dare she not shower, get dressed and wear makeup?

She must be some snooty lawyer.

According to an Andy Scott article Alicia Keys said, "The entertainment industry had turned her into a 'chameleon.'’ Some cynics might say "Yes, blame the entertain-

ment industry!"

Alicia Keys also mentioned that when she first appeared in the public eye, the constant judgement forced her to choose the

more feminine look.

In an essay for Lena Dunham's Lenny Letters, published May 2016, she said: “... the truth is, I was just from New York, and everyone I knew acted like that. In the streets of New York you had to be tough...but this [the entertainment industry] wasn't the streets of New York."

No offense to Alicia but girl, you made that decision all on your own.

However, you make a very valid point, your environment plays an integral role in your demeanor, and now that you've embraced the feminine aspect of life and still chose to be yourself go right ahead, more power to you.

That tough New York City attitude is one I can relate to, but I prefer an attitude in heels, no qualms, and lip gloss.

It's the type of girl I've always been, and the woman I prefer to embrace.

Reminiscing on the nostalgia of my early Mary Kay days at 19 years old, I was forced to wear makeup that I wasn't too interested in wearing, not because I didn't like

makeup, but because of the criticisms, the judgement, and ridicule I was subjected to.

How could I embrace being labelled an easy going promiscuous woman? Why would I do that? So I opt for the natural look to play it safe.

The bold bombshells who choose to wear their makeup loud and proud are subjected to the common denominator of makeup innuendos like "you don't need makeup to be pretty." Everybody just calm down!

It's becoming cliche for me to say once again, "I don't buy a $4000 lipstick to impress or appease."

There's a happy medium that people seem to be satisfied with, where it's not too much or not too little, sophisticated and well balanced!

A glowing goddess...the look that exposes your true beauty is a look that is subtle with a hint of shine. Makeup should look chic, unique, and effortless. It's the fusion between a barefaced beauté and a contouring queen.

Embrace beauty, embrace the goddess in you.

Film

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

By Subraj Singh

Paul Verhoeven’s Elle

You might not know who Paul Verhoeven is, but you definitely know some of the films directed by him (Basic Instinct, Total Recall, etc.). Similarly, you might not know who Isabelle Huppert is, but she is a woman belonging to a group of French actresses (along with others like Marion Cotillard, Lea Seydoux, Juliette Binoche) who have transitioned well into Hollywood and are carving out a place in the American movie industry for the French actress. Together these Verhoeven and Huppert have come together to produce what is, if it gets a wider audience, is sure to be a controversial and divisive film. Apparently, the difficulties of getting such a violent film made in Boston was one of the reasons why the director decided to make the

movie in France, in French and with French actors.

The film begins with Michele (Huppert), a successful and wealthy businesswoman on the floor of her house, her blouse pulled down, the doors open, and her pet cat benignly watching over her. The atmosphere seems almost mundane, but Michele has just been raped by a masked intruder. It is a sordid reminder that under the mundane and the everyday things in life, there is still the dark and twisted existence of everything that scares and hurts us. In fact, this perception of normality and the way it is used to mask the more troubling aspects of Michele’s life is one of the recurring themes in the film. The rape is the most obvious example, but Michele ploughing through her existence

and refusing to acknowledge her father, an imprisoned mass murderer, and Michele’s ability to lie and be hurtful to those around her while maintaining a façade of normalcy and upright standing in her professional and public life are ways in which normality in the film is used not only as a guise for the rape and the rapist, but also for Michele and her own faults and failings and her own actions that have hurt other people.

While it can be agreed that the rape is a burst of horror and pain in Michele’s world of normalness, then perhaps it is equally arguable that Michele’s actions (such as her sleeping with her best friend’s husband or the way she insults her own mother) are bursts of pain and horror in the lives of those people. Therefore, it seems possible to contend that the film concerns itself not so much about rape, but about secrecy and lies and the way these two things manifest themselves in violent or abusive outbursts.

If the rapist, whose identity is uncovered later in the film, had been open about his issues (in the sense of seeking psychiatric help or talking to someone), instead of keeping his desires to himself, might Michele’s rape not have been prevented?

If Michele had been more open about her own pain and wants with the people around

VII her, would she not have ended up hurting everyone less? Is Michele, therefore, being compared, in some manner (almost perverse, definitely salacious) to the rapist? It would seem so, especially in the numerous ways in which Verhoeven and the screenplay depicts Michele’s relationship with the rapist.

The film calls for deep thinking and it challenges a lot of conventional ideas about theories and movements that have been established already. Huppert herself considers the film to be “post-feminist.” However, it is important to not be daunted by the Indie-nature of the production, because overall the film is a tense thriller. As we watch Michele follow the red herrings and tries to figure out which one of several men in her life the rapist could be, we never lose interest in the story. Many compliments must be given to Isabelle Huppert who carries the film powerfully from start to finish.

She gives a strong and, yet delicately nuanced, performance. The film has been selected as France’s official selection for the Academy Awards next year.

When the list of Best Actress nominees is announced, Huppert would be most deserving if she wins a spot among the five.

VIII

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

The Environment and Human Health It is evident that many people are not conscious of the intimate relationship between our health and the environment. The quality of our environment has a huge impact on our health.

Our environment exposes us to physical, chemical and biological factors which can affect our health.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 13 million deaths annually are due to preventable environmental causes. Reducing environmental risk could save

as many as four million children’s lives a year especially in developing countries. Moreover, we contribute to the state of our environment, which essentially means we have an impact on our health. There are several environmental parameters which influence our health, some major ones are: ● INDOOR AIR QUALITY Indoor air quality refers to the air quality within and around buildings and structures such as our homes, schools or offices. Generally,

air quality becomes a problem when air contains dust and offensive odours, chemical contaminants, dampness or mould.

In the workplace and at school, occupants can be exposed to emissions from office machines, cleaning products, carpets and furnishings, perfumes, cigarette smoke, water-damaged building materials, microbial growth (fungal, mould, and bacterial), insects, and outdoor pollutants. Poor indoor air quality has been linked to headaches, fatigue,

If there is an operation in your neighbourhood that is causing air or water pollution, you can make a report to the EPA on Tel. Nos.: 225-5471/6044/0506.

trouble concentrating, and irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs.

Homes which use open fires, solid fuels (wood, charcoal, crop wastes), or traditional stoves, e.g., kerosene stoves, for cooking are exposed to pollutants such as fine particles and carbon monoxide. Exposure to such indoor air pollution that has been linked to many diseases, in particular, pneumonia among children and chronic

respiratory diseases among adults. This problem is exacerbated in houses/kitchens which have poor ventilation.

Since we spend about 80-90% of our time inside buildings our exposure to harmful indoor pollutants can be serious. In addition, some exposures, such as asbestos and radon, do not cause immediate symptoms but can lead to cancer after many years. Therefore we ought to be conscious of our internal

surroundings. Proper ventilation is a simple but effective way of reducing our exposure to harmful pollutants in the indoor setting. ● OUTDOOR AIR QUALITY Air pollution is a constant factor that continues to pose a significant threat to health worldwide. Air pollution comes from many different Turn to page XIV ►►►

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

IX

Bauxite Centennial postage stamps launched

The four centennial stamps

Four new commemorative postage stamps have been launched to mark 100 years since the start of bauxite operations here.

The stamps were launched Thursday last at Three Friends Mine in Region 10 - the first bauxite mine in Guyana.

The stamps were unveiled by Advisor to the Minister of Public Telecommunications Enrico Woolford and Chairman of the Centennial Committee Horace James.

The stamps were produced as a result of a collaboration between the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC), the Bauxite Centennial Committee and the bauxite company Rusal.

Present at the well attended ceremony were Post Master General Karen Brown, members of the centennial committee, General Manager of Bosai Minerals Group Guyana Robert Shan and other members of staff, Deputy Mayor of Linden Waneka Arindell, Members of National Trust Guyana, old bauxite employees and scores of students.

The stamps will be available for circulation in $80, $140, $150 and $180 denominations at Post Offices countrywide.

They will serve as a memorabilia for the evolution of bauxite mining and how it has impacted the lives of Guyanese.

General Post Master Karen Brown said the stamps provide a historical prospective into the bauxite industry’s 100 years of existence.

“The stamps we unveil today have the fortitude to last way beyond the 200 years of the bauxite industry and I would like to challenge us to safely archive these stamps for prosperity since each may worth millions 100 years from now,” Brown said.

Mr Woolford said stamps play an important role in informing us of our past.

“Stamps have been that important reminder of how we have carried correspondences and content over the years, how we have ‘stamped’ our authority to allow that free movement of information and communication.”

Given technology, Woolford said that the Ministry of Public Telecommunications will play an integral role in the transformation of the Post Offices becoming ICT hubs where Guyanese can not only access public WIFI but use efficient and effective government service though its e-government platform.

“It’s a way to modernize Government services to the people, improve their lives and also the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this country.”

The Three Friends Mine has become a historical site where the first bauxite was dug from the crust of the earth in 1916.

Three Friend Mine was named after three friends who journeyed from Canada after they were told by Mr. John Bain Mackenzie of the rich mineral that was discovered in the soil.

Located on the site was the first bridge that was built to transport bauxite across the Demerara River where it was taken to Mackenzie to be packaged for export.

In 1920, a 90-mile rail road was built from Three Friends to Mackenzie and the bauxite was transported by steam locomotives.

The first company to commence bauxite mining was Demba (Demerara Bauxite Company) which was an offshoot of the Canadian Aluminum Company Alcan. Others who followed were Guymine, Linmine, Linpa, Omai and presently Bosai.

The bauxite company was nationalized in 1971 and after operating at a loss, the then government was on the verge of closing operations as the consolidated fund was forced to fetch the financial burden of the company with US$15 M per year.

The high competition in the alumina market was deemed responsible for this. Many private companies showed interest in the company but the one who was willing to invest in the ailing company was Chinese company Bosai Incorporated,

The four centennial stamps unveiled by Chairman of the Centennial Committee Horace James (left), Public Telecommunications Ministerial Advisor Enricho Woolford, General Post Master Karen Brown, Bosai’s Chief Engineer Orin Barnwell (right). Also in photo are 86-year-old eah Lorimor (sitting), the oldest resident of Three Friends and a student of Coomacka Primary school

which commenced operations in 2007 and is still in operation.

This unveiling ceremony was just one of the many other activities that were held during this week to commemorate 100 years of bauxite mining.

A Centennial arch that is currently under construction will be launched on the 22nd November. A bauxite centennial magazine will also be published and the establishment of a centennial park and industrial museum has already commenced.

X

Khadija Benn:

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

Countering the typical narrative of Guyana’s landscape

Amalivaca, from the series, Wanderer, 2012. Archival pigment print on canvas, 48 x 32 in. (Photo: Courtesy of the artist)

in it she was talking about your background and your formal training as a geographer .

12 and cartogra20 a, ic fr A Not tist) esy of the ar pher. I want(Photo: Court ed to know how much of that factored into the production of your work, if at all.

A few years ago Khadija Benn wowed Khadija Benn: It did significantly. Growing Guyana’s online photography commu- up I traveled quite a bit throughout Guyana. nity with a series of emotive portraits set Then as part of my work we had to do a lot against some of Guyana’s most beautiful of fieldwork. So many times we would be and tucked away locations. Just when out in the field for a few days or a week. most persons had come to look forward to That particular image [Amalivaca, 2012] her occasional posts online, she vanished was taken at the end of a really long day of from social media and left many wonder- fieldwork in Region 9. Because of the fact ing why. that I grew up in Linden and traveled quite Benn’s works have since re-emerged in a bit, I have an understanding of the local the recently concluded Un|Fixed Homeland landscapes. I know what good landscape exhibition at the Aljira Center for Contem- photography is. I’ve done some of it but it’s porary Art in Newark, New Jersey, where usually not enough. I’m always interested in they were exhibited alongside photographs inserting a person in there to bring it alive from twelve artists with varying connections to me or to give it a narrative, so it’s all to Guyana. connected.

In a recent interview, we spoke about her participation in the exhibition; the art/ DH: In a recent interview with Michael photography making process; and her views [Lam] we were talking about some of the on social media, its (non) relevance to her art local photographers’ hesitation to embrace practice and what led to her absence from it. the word “artist.” Is it the same for you?

Dominique Hunter: I was reading the wall

text for the exhibition that Grace [Ali] sent for the Un|Fixed Homeland exhibition and

KB: With regards to it [the work] being

artistic, interestingly I’ve never really embraced the title of photographer but I’m

more comfortable embracing the title of artist. Grace and I would’ve discussed that at length. Photography, I’ve always just seen as one aspect of things that I’ve done or as long as I can remember I’ve always dabbled in different aspects of it. I’ve always enjoyed reading and looking at art. It just so happened that when I decided to share whatever I was working on, it happened to be my photographs, my images. They’re usually conceptual and emotive portraits, which are inherently artistic. So I don’t have a problem with that. What actually makes me a bit uneasy is the title of photographer because I feel it’s limiting.

DH: What has been your experience of

being included in the Un|Fixed Homeland exhibition?

KB: I wasn’t able to make it because of work so I really didn’t experience it. Honestly, I think I missed all of it because I’m not on social media and I’m not even home right now. So in terms of the press and publicity about the exhibition, it probably went right past me. But I was humbled to be part of it certainly. To even conceive that I could’ve been in an exhibition and have my work displayed alongside some of these people who I so greatly admire is really incredible.

From my understanding a lot of them [the other exhibiting artists] are full time artists or they’re in the space whereas for me there is a disconnect. There’s my work where I do a lot of technical writing and there’s this artistic side where I’m working on a painting or a concept for a shoot. There’s tension

because it’s really difficult to reconcile the two. They don’t always merge. Even when it comes to my work, sometimes if I decide that I need to work on the concept for a shoot then I need to completely put work aside and out of my head because I’m not able to transition between the two. It’s one or the other.

I basically have to decide which is priority and how much time I can give to it. I have to maintain a balance.

DH: For an artist, I find your absence from

social media interesting since everyone is now capitalizing on having a presence on every social media platform to get their work known. We’re constantly bombarded by information and you’re completely removed from that. How do you feel about being off the radar but still having your work shared online?

KB: I prefer it. I did the social media thing for a little bit and it’s not for me. When I started with photography, I was on Flickr.

So it actually started in a social media environment. I started sharing my pictures because that particular community offered a lot of feedback, not just from portraitists but also from landscape photographers, industrial style photographers. You just got completely different perspectives from this community of people all over the world and that was what I appreciated Flickr for when I was first starting out. That community honed my skills and helped me to develop a style that I felt comfortable with because it wasn’t just good enough to take a picture. It had to Turn to page XI ►►►

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016 ◄◄◄ From page X

be something that felt like me and that was meaningful to me.

I tried the Facebook thing but the difficulty with Facebook for me was that my work was never meant to be commercial.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to photograph people but I felt that if I wasn’t available for commercial work then people weren’t really interested in what I was doing. I knew that there were some people who really wanted to see the nature, abstracts and I used to do some documentary work and the portrait work but commercial work just isn’t for me when it comes to photography. I wanted to focus on developing styles or exhibiting or collaborations with other photographer/artists, and that platform wasn’t allowing me to do that. Or at least at the time I wasn’t able to make that happen because it appeared to be more of a commercial endeavor and that wasn’t my intention. So I just came off of everything and I’ve been doing things a lot slower but a lot more focused.

blurry. Why would you upload this?” Not seeing that blurriness is also a form of technique. Whether or not I executed it well, it was experimental. It was an attempt to try something different that I hadn’t seen before, at least in Guyana. A lot of the casual photographers don’t get that because it always has to be tact sharp, it always has to follow the rule of thirds, it always has to be a particular way. I think breaking out of the

DH: So after you create your works, how

then do you make them accessible to the public? Is that even important to you right now?

KB: Of late no because I’ve put precedence to my career, which would be in cartography, GIS [Geographic Information System], and research work.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last few years. It’s just not been that important in the last few years to get critique from the photography community. A lot of it is “Nice!” or “Amazing!” or “Great!” and you want so much more. I want heavy critique. I want somebody to tell me “you’re transitioning from what you usually do” or “your style is stagnant”.

I found that it hasn’t been useful to do that. So yes, my work hasn’t been visible in recent years and I actually do have to figure out how I’m going to get around that.

I do have a website. I have understood the disadvantages of being “off the radar” as you put it. It’s something that I’ve accepted and it has a lot to do with the fact that the art that I’ve tried to make has never been for anyone but myself.

It was never my intention to earn from it or exhibit. I’ve always just done it because I liked it.

DH: How important do you

think it was for artists living both at home and abroad to be given the platform of this exhibition to engage with ideas of homeland?

KB: I think it has been important in terms of establishing a sense of direction with regard to photography as art. I remember there was one time when I started publishing a series of images that were very soft, a bit blurry and very different from what I typically do, the tact sharp, very clear narrative. I started getting a lot of comments underneath it saying “It’s

mold is important for that because when we would’ve looked at some of the imagery, some of it was mixed media. So looking at the different ways we can elevate a basic photograph is something that a lot of casual photographers or hobbyists haven’t considered. If Grace had limited the exhibition to just Guyanese artists [living in Guyana] it might not have had that depth, scope and different perspectives of photography as

XI art. It might have been somewhat redundant.

DH: What can we expect from Khadija Benn

in the future?

KB: I’ve hit a roadblock with photography because what happens is that if I feel like I’ve taken a picture that feels the same or I’ve done it already then I’m just not going to publish it, share it or mention that I’ve worked on it. I’m more interested in doing more experimental and mixed media work. As I told you about the disconnect between my work and my art and I want to find how I can build a bridge between the two through art or mapping. It would require quite a bit of introspection and introversion to do it because it’s something I’ve been turning over in my mind.

I know a lot of people have been asking me about a solo exhibition in Guyana. I’m not keen on it right now because based on my body of work and what I envision a solo exhibition to be, it’s not there yet, it’s not ready. I have an idea of what it would look like. So a lot of what is to come next, if it were to come next, would be new work.

And a lot of it would be unlike what I’ve done before.

Kanuku, from the series, Wanderer, 2012. Archival pigment print on canvas, 48 x 48 in. (Photo: Courtesy of the artist)

Chrysalis, from the series, Wanderer, 2013. Archival pigment print on canvas, 48 x 48 in. (Photo: Courtesy of the artist)

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Hall ween, Fear and Mental Health Hello everyone, I hope this week has treated you well.

Halloween is here and before I potentially ruin it for some people, I’d like to wish you all a happy one! ☺ I’ve always both liked and disliked Halloween. I like to scare people but I don’t like to be scared. I like the candy but my body doesn’t like the candy. I like to see the costumes but I really don’t like getting dressed up. I love horror movies but I can’t sleep for days after watching them. It’s always been a toss-up. However, as I got older and more interested and educated in the field of Mental Health, I started looking at almost everything, including Halloween, differently.

I think about those suffering from mental health issues that see insulting costumes.

I think about how individuals with anxiety and panic disorders must feel. I think about how some individuals see others having fun and can’t understand why they can’t feel the same. I guess it could take the fun out of it but these acknowledgements can also allow us to be more sensitive, supportive and well- rounded individuals.

Now, let’s talk about fear for a second.

Fear is a completely normal human emotion. It is usually triggered by threat and is what allows for basic human survival instinct. This essentially means that healthy levels of fear keep us safe. However, constantly living in fear- which sadly many Guyanese do- result in major harm to our overall well- being.

We live within a society with a high crime (robberies, sexual assault, homicides etc.) rate. This can cause people to develop high anxiety and phobias of experiencing these events. For example, I’ve been fortunate enough to have never been robbed but still, I’m always very aware of my surroundings and most of the time uncomfortable when walking alone at night.

This is not rare or unhealthy as I’m sure lots of people who have never been robbed feel this way. However, constant worry and fear is and its effects are numerous. It can cause physical issues such as impaired memory, cardiovascular damage, breathing prob-

lems, stomach issues such as ulcers and just generally weakens our immune system. It can cause mental health issues such as high anxiety and stress, fatigue, disturbances in both eating and sleeping patterns, depression, and even thoughts of hopelessness and suicide.

The worst part? These harms come whether the threat is real or simply just perceived by the individual.

My occasional disapproval of Halloween also exists as it’s an opportunity to exploit other people’s fear. There are only a few things that I dislike more than this. I’ve al-

ways been afraid of insects or amphibians such as cockroaches or frogs. There were many times, both during my children and quite recently, that people would purposely push me into a corner with these creatures for their own enjoyment. It’s not funny but rather cruel and I’m calling you all out! You know who you are and you’re lucky I’m not writing your names! Halloween is basically this on a larger scale. While some really enjoy it, others really fear it.

NOW, WHAT CAN WE DO TO MANAGE OUR FEAR? In most cases, fear diminishes with age for example, fear of the dark or ghosts/ monsters. I remember being terribly afraid

of both until the late age of about 15. Thankfully, I’ve grown out of that! For those that haven’t grown out of their childhood fearsthat’s completely okay but there are ways to overcome it.

Fear may come from many different things such as stigma, experience, fear of judgement or feelings of lack of control etc. The realisation that there is so much we can’t control is every person’s nightmare.

However, what we can definitely control is how we react.

We can ask ourselves basic questions that may provide clarity and rationality. Ask yourself what exactly is it that you’re afraid of and is it realistic?

It helps to face your fear. To be honest, this is advice I give but rarely take myself.

This doesn’t mean that if you’re afraid of robberies, you should put yourself in a dangerous position to prove it’s not that bad, no!

It just means that avoidance usually makes fear stronger and gives it more power than it deserves. For example, I used to be terrified of public speaking but exposing myself to it more and more has caused me not to be. This is called exposure therapy.

Breathing also always helps! Inhale through the nose for 4 seconds and exhale through the mouth for 8 seconds. This helps to lower the increased heart rate and trembling that usually comes with fear. Repeat this as many times as you need. It may sound trivial to use something we do naturally as a technique but you would be surprised the difference the simplest things can make once we concentrate on it.

I hope you all enjoy Halloween but again, I do urge you to be more sensitive to those around you. Please do not wear a straight- jacket and go as a “mental patient”. I see this all the time and I always cringe. I believe this happens as we tend to fear the unknown and misunderstood but do understand that these costumes contribute to the already existing problem of stigma and discrimination which prevents people from seeking treatment in Guyana.

If you want to go as someone who is depressed, anxious or even suicidal, here’s a tip.

Just wear regular clothes as millions of ‘regular’ people suffer from these. In Guyana, we average over 200,000 feel this way. Considering our population of just roughly 800,000, that’s a tremendous amount. Now have fun but be considerate!

Thanking you for reading. Please keep sending any topics you’d like to talk about to caitlinvieira@gmail.com Or come in to see me at: Georgetown Public Hospital: Psychiatric Department: Monday- Friday – 8am- 12pm Woodlands Hospital: Outpatient Department Drug and Alcohol group meetings - Mondays 4:15 Good mental health group meetingsWednesdays 4:15 Say Yes to Life and No to Drugs! Always!

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

◄◄◄ From page IV itself is not experiencing a placebo effect. If anything, it is the pet owner who might be responding to the placebo.

The owner who anxiously monitors their pet throughout its time in the trial might in fact be helping the pet get better. It is certainly something that can affect the animal's convalescence that is not down to the drug being tested in the trial.

What this shows is that it is tricky to pin down a real placebo effect in animals, Muñana says.

One way to reduce some of these complicating factors would be to introduce a third group to animal drug trials.

This group would receive absolutely no treatment, not even a placebo. This is sometimes known as a "waiting list" group. If the dogs on the placebo do better than the dogs on the waiting list, that might hint of a real placebo effect in animals.

TRICKY STUDY But this is a tricky kind of study to carry out.

Trial participants are hard to come by and the dog owners who do enrol their pet in a study are doing so precisely because they want to take action to make their pet feel better. They might be reluctant to enrol in a study where the chance that their dog is receiving the trial therapy is lower than the chance that it is not.

"You want the owners to feel like they're part of the study and [that their dog] may be getting the active drug," says Muñana.

There are other ways an animal owner's behaviour might have an impact. For instance, it might subtly alter the owner's perception of the animal in a way that changes the animal's behaviour.

Ellen Kienzle is a veterinary researcher who specialises in nutrition and dietetics at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich in Germany. She has been interested in the psychology of feeding animals for many years.

"It's one thing to have scientific knowledge, and another is getting to the animal. And there is always the owner in between," she says.

Kienzle started hearing a lot of stories about certain feed supplements and their purportedly wondrous effects in horses. She wanted to get to the bottom of these anecdotes.

"I got fed up with all these supplements," she says.

She could see no solid scientific reason why, say, giving an adult horse a selenium supplement – even if it did not have a selenium deficiency – would help its muscle health.

Despite this, many riders Kienzle heard about were convinced that selenium helped horses with stiff muscles.

"It was an ideal model," she says. She designed a study to put two supplements to the test: selenium and vitamin E, alongside a placebo control.

"We found enormous placebo effects," she says. But once again, that was not necessarily because the animals were responding directly to the placebo.

"Especially with horse riding, there is tremendous interaction between the rider and the horse," she says.

Kienzle compares riding to dancing. If your dancing partner suddenly spies someone they dislike, you would be able to feel the change in tension in their body. You would know something is up, she says – and that might put you on edge too. "That is how, to my way of thinking, part of the communication between a horse and the rider works."

The horse responds to subtle, even subconscious cues from the rider, like a sensitive dance partner might. "If your mood is good and you think, 'Ah, today he or she is going to perform very well,' the horse will fulfil your expectations. And also, if you expect the horse to make a certain error and that picture is in your mind, your body communicates exactly that to the horse."

The power of this effect can be extraordinarily strong. It is not just about perceptions, but marked changes in behaviour.

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

How is your tongue?

The overall appearance of your tongue can tell you a lot of what is going on in your body in terms of your general health.

That is why doctors in the nineteenth century always told their patients to stick their tongue out so that they (the doctors) can have a visual examination of it as part of the diagnostic process. We dentists are trained to examine the tongue and to evaluate our findings in relation to numerous diseases both local and systemic.

If the tongue is red, it could mean that you have a vitamin deficiency. A glossy, bright red tongue may be a sign your body is lacking iron or vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 and iron are needed to mature papillae (the carpet-like surface) on the tongue. If you are deficient in those vitamins, you lose those papillae on the tongue, which can make it appear very smooth. In severe cases, this “balding” can cause pain when eating hot liquids or spicy food. Vegetarians are especially prone to low levels of vitamin B12, which is found in certain meats.

If you notice that your whole tongue is red, and you are a vegetarian, ask your doctor about taking supplements. Notable vitamin deficiencies can also be associated with an autoimmune disease in the gut, in

which the stomach does not absorb vitamins.

On the other hand, if your tongue appears brown or with a furry darkness, it could mean you do not have the best oral hygiene. A tongue covered in dark hairs (actually called “black hairy tongue”) may look nasty, but dentists agree that it is not cause for major concern. We have papillae on the surface of our tongue, which grow throughout our lifetime.

These are normally worn down by eating, but sometimes they can become overgrown, which makes them more likely to harbor bacteria and become dis-colored by bacteria or from food. This can cause bad breath or taste abnormalities.

Typically, this condition is brought on by smoking, drinking coffee and dark teas or poor oral hygiene. Removing the offending cause, like smoking, and brushing the tongue or using a tongue scraper, may be all you need to cure it.

If the surface of your tongue appears like white cheese, you may very well have a yeast infection.

A lumpy, white-coated tongue could be thrush, an oral yeast infection caused by over production of Candida albicans (a fungus). This condition is often linked to antibiotics. Remember that your tongue is home to naturally occurring bac-

Dr. BERTRAND R. STUART, DDS. teria and yeast. When you take an antibiotic, which selectively kills off bacteria, it can allow yeast, which is not killed off be antibiotic, to take over.

Thrush, which might cause taste disturbances or a bit of pain, can also occur in those with weakened immune systems.

Typical in young children, thrush also affects people with autoimmune diseases, people with diabetes the is not well controlled, chemotherapy patients and the elderly.

Wrinkles on the tongue could indicate that you are getting old (yes, even our tongues show signs of aging). Fissures and cracks in the tongue are typically harmless, but problems can arise if poor hygiene leads to infection within the crevices.

Once in a while a fungal infection can develop inside the clefts. You will suddenly have a pain, foul smell, and sometimes burning. Often the infection is treated with a topical antifungal medication. Some dental appliances, like dentures, can also cause indentations on the tongue.

Small patches of white, especially under the tongue, if you are a smoker, is not good news. These lesions have five to seventeen percent chances of developing into cancer.

They are called leucoplakia and considered to be pre-cancerous. However, the process may be reversed if you stop smoking in time.

The Environment... sources: stationary sources such as factories, power plants, and smelters and smaller sources such as dry cleaners and degreasing operations; mobile sources such as cars, buses, planes, trucks, and trains; and naturally occurring sources such as windblown dust, and volcanic eruptions.

Air quality can be affected in many ways by the pollution emitted from these sources.

Like indoor air pollution, outdoor air pollution also contributes to respiratory diseases, irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, lung and heart problems, such as asthma and increased risk of heart attack.

At times we contribute to air pollution by burning our garbage. Although many think this is an effective way of disposing of garbage, burning actually results in the release pollutants like carbon dioxide, mercury and acid into the atmosphere which damage the environment and also contribute to respiratory diseases. ● WATER AND SANITATION The quality of water, whether used for drinking, domestic purposes, food production, manufacturing or

recreational purposes can affect our health. Water of poor quality can cause disease outbreaks. According to the WHO, contaminated water serves as a mechanism to transmit communicable diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and guinea worm infection.

The way we dispose of our waste significantly influences our water quality. Specific types of waste are especially risky, e.g., sewage, pesticides, plastics and Styrofoam. Even when disposed of on land, waste usually makes its way into waterways which we depend on for various purposes.

So to ensure our water quality is not compromised we ought to take it on ourselves to dispose of our waste in a proper

◄◄◄ From page VIII

manner. Remember at the EPA we are here to help you improve your environment and your health. Visit our website, call us or follow us on facebook.

Sources: http://www.who.int/indoorair/en/ https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/introduction-indoor-air-quality http://www.explainthatstuff.com/waterpollution. html Share your ideas and questions by sending letters to: “Our Earth, Our Environment”, C/O EIT Division, Environmental Protection Agency, Ganges Street, Sophia, GEORGETOWN, or email us at: eit.epaguyana@ gmail.com

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Eradicating poverty

Every year on 17th October, the anniversary of the United Nations Day for the Eradication of Poverty is commemorated and people in public life all over the world join in the chorus of committing themselves to the eradication of poverty.

The present institutional and governmental commitment took its roots during the Industrial Revolution. In the 17th century and further back, religion and religious people addressed poverty and ordinary folk made their own efforts to get out of it.

Poverty not only deprives human beings of food, clothes, shelter and other necessary basic material needs, but makes it impossible for the poor to know of the cultural and educational life. Most people and their children entrapped in the net of poverty find it impossible to escape and so poverty becomes self-perpetuating.

When one reads reports on poverty or other comments on poverty, it is usually about statistics and economics and very little about the plight of poor people and their children or their sufferings.

The language of religion treats poverty as something individual and human and therefore communicates much better to the large audience. Though Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism have their respective prescriptions in dealing with poverty, they all encouraged ordinary folk to make their own individual efforts.

It may be useful to modern planners, politicians and thinkers to study how these ordinary folk emerged from poverty and integrate some of those methods in modern planning.

Modern planning, with its provision of water to people who never had such a facility or extension of electricity supplies or expansion of cheaper public transport or building of roads in poorer areas are very commendable and desirable things for helping to minimize poverty.

It may be useful for those who are involved in programes for the elimination of poverty to closely study how the emancipated slaves and the indentures (semislaves) dealt with the challenge of poverty.

The freed men and the indentured labourers who managed to leave the sugar estates had absolutely nothing. They had no shelter, very little food, no clothes other than what they were wearing, no education, no medical facilities, no drinking water and very little or no money. This was the condition in the late 1830's and 1840s.

These 19th century poor met the challenge and overcame. The freedmen founded a large number of villages - the Village Movement - and were able to provide themselves with shelter and food and other basic amenities.

The freedmen used the co-operative in their effort. These people made their clothes go as far as possible using "saddle pieces" on their trousers or even using the strong cotton in which and other grain were shipped. They and the indentures used folk medicine except for glauber and epsom salts and iodine and whatever tiny amounts of money they earned, they saved, These freedmen and indentures gradually emerged to a better life, though still in poverty.

Then free primary education became universal from the 1870s and parents and

children took to it with great enthusiasm. Books were valued and avidly read and soon village youth joined the Public Service and the Police while the more ambitious qualified as lawyers, doctors, and engineers.

The indentured labourers had the same enthusiasm for education but no schools were built in the areas in which they lived.

At great effort, they sent some children to the established villages or to the city for schooling.

These 19th century poor quickly acquired skills as craftsmen and used rain water as potable water and kerosene lamps for light, not waiting on the water company

or the electricity company to supply them.

These poor folk who had absolutely nothing emerged from abject poverty with an opportunity for upward mobility.

Young people to-day should cease to depend on Government or others to get them out of their plight They could be guided by the methods their forefathers used - determination to overcome, hard work and sacrifice, making the material things they use, for example, clothes, go a longer way.

Their forefathers also grew as much of their food as possible and regularly saved whatever small sums and not consuming it all.

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Mothers employ climate smart agri practices to battle floods and improve production Residential yards converted into small farms producing cash crops such as eschalot, celery and peppers is a common sight in many communities of West Coast Berbice.

While most of the produce are sold to wholesalers and end up in market places, a portion is sold within the community and neighboring villages.

For over 15 years Savitri has been producing eschalot and celery on a small scale- just enough to sell to neighbours.

Her family depends on this income to satisfy their needs. For years, during rainy weather condition Savitri was unable plant owing to her land being susceptible to

flooding.

This is no longer a challenge for her, thanks to collaboration between the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) and Food for the Poor Guyana Inc. Earlier this year, Savitri and 15 other women benefited from a livelihood project, which saw the construction of tunnel houses to help combat climate change by adopting climate smart agricultural practices.

An additional shade house was constructed in the community to facilitate practical research for the cultivation of non-traditional crops such as cauliflower and bell sweet peppers. The project is

Saviti stands in her tunnel house

Dr. Homenauth and team visit the farms

referred to as the Woodley Park Farmers’ Group Shade House Project.

The benefits of growing crops under shaded conditions are already being enjoyed by Savitri. For example, during the recent rainy season Savitri’s yard was not converted into a swamp. Instead, under a tunnel house laid five 18-ft*80-ft beds covered with healthy green celery plants that were being harvested.

Further, the productivity of her farm has increased significantly.

“Previously I used to reap 10 to 20 pounds of celery from my farm and sell to neighbours. Now, for this first crop I reaped 45 pounds of celery. I sell my celery

to persons in my community.

“I have no other means of earning an income so I am very grateful for this assistance I received,” Savitri said.

Smiling, Savitri said farming has never been this simple. The tunnel house protects her from the blistering sun and cleaning the beds is easy.

Savitri’s story is similar to the other women, who work tirelessly to improve the economic situation of their families. In fact, most of the beneficiaries are the head of their households. As such, the project aims to promote rural community development through sustainable agriculture with an emphasis on women empowerment.

NAREI is pleased to have partnered with Food For the Poor Guyana Inc. in providing the materials to construct the tunnel houses at a reduced cost. Extension Officers working in Region Five are working closely with the farmers to ensure the success of the project.

Dr. Oudho Homenauth, Chief Executive Officer of NAREI recently interacted with members of the women’s group. The group was at the time benefiting from a demonstration exercise where concerns about planting under shaded conditions were addressed.

Dr. Homenauth assured the group that NAREI will continue to provide technical support and transfer new technology through demonstration exercises.

He noted that the women’s group made a wise choice to include climate smart practices that would provide year-round production and increase household incomes.

Members of the Women's Group

Living one brush

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

- Painter Pek

By Daniel Haynes What all began with fiddling around with a paintbrush one night a little less than a year ago, has now blossomed into what seems like a life calling for a painter with big dreams.

Sacred Bliss

Pekahiah James, now 21 years old, might tell you that despite her recent start to the world of painting, it feels as if she has been “painting all her life”-something quite ironic for the girl who seriously dislikes clichés. You can call her Pikachu if her name is too difficult to pronounce; everyone calls her that anyways.

Pekahiah Lakeisha James was born on June 18, 1995 in Georgetown, to a family of three other girls and a boy. As fate would have it, she was always the most expressive one of the bunch.

Childhood was filled with fun, thanks to her expressive nature coupled with her free spirit.

“Childhood was so much fun for me; I used to hang out with my siblings and just pick trouble a lot,” she recounted as a smile crossed her face. (It was an added bonus having her younger sister present at the interview, who rolled her eyes in response to her picking trouble memory).

It was this expressiveness that was markedly present as she grew older and now she sees it as no surprise that her calling involves using painting as an avenue to express herself. However, she views her paintings as not limited to her expression but as pieces that other persons can internalize as their own.

Pekahiah James “For me being a painter is so

much more than you’d think it is. You’d look at a color and just see a color, I’d look at a colour and see the infinite possibilities behind it,” she stated.

Her introduction to art as a whole, did not start one year ago, as she was an art student in school, even writing the subject for CSEC-though at this point she was doing Textiles and Fibre. There wasn’t a real fascination with fine arts for her at that time, she claimed.

PEKAHIAH THE PAINTER “I must absolutely be alone,” she stated when asked about her painting process. It wasn’t a statement made out of arrogance but one made as a simple matter-of-fact since she paints better when left well alone. Her first painting was a piece she calls Gaia – a figure taken from Greek mythology who is the personification of the earth. It was with this painting that the life she knew was changed.

“Gaia came to me at a time when I needed to paint; there was so much going on in my life and I just decided to let

Gaia

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kahiah James that flow onto the canvas,” she stated. “I would continuously update her and this is what she turned into.”

Gaia, along with a few other pieces, were showcased at this year’s GuyExpo and one person offered the “newbie” painter $300000 for the piece.

“I just couldn’t part with her, she represented more to me than a painting,” she stated before joking “I should have taken the money, huh?”

The bubbly painter is a ball of energy who is always challenging herself and can be quite moody.

“When I’m focused on a painting I think I’m the moodiest person there is,” she laughed, a statement which was acknowledged by another rolling of the eyes from her sister.

According to Pekahiah, she must always be in an environment that is changing and one that allows her to keep moving forward since she becomes unsettled if there is stagnation. To this date, she has completed over 20 paintings, some of which she has done for

persons privately.

“What I love is that when someone brings an idea for me, it’s something new, something for me to sink my claws into and just work on,” she stated. And what could be better than new challenges for the person who hates routine?

Her painting process has also taken some refining since initially she could not paint without a glass of tea by her side. That was up to the point where she started to dip her pain brushes in the tea she was drinking thinking it was a cup of paint thinners (something she is very embarrassed about).

“There have been so many times I dipped my brushes in my tea or almost drank thinners then I’m like, ‘Oops wrong cup.’ So the tea drinking definitely had to go,” she stated, laughing. In more recent times, the painter has traded her tea for something a little “stronger”.

“Hey, you can’t be an artist and not drink!” she stated adamantly in an effort to justify it, but with her work you simply cannot argue with the results.

The 21-year-old also laughs at what she calls her lack of fashion sense. “You’d think as someone who does art I’d at least have some fashion sense, but I do not,” she stated.

“Like I look at my friends who are painters and artists and I’m like, ‘Whoa!’ and here I am over here with my lack of fashion sense.”

In the world of art it is no secret that every painter needs an anchor to keep them grounded and for Pekahaiah, her family plays the role of anchor. “I’m very close to my family; we’re such a close knit bunch and despite the fact that we’re imperfect I love them to death,” she added in a sombre tone. “They encourage me, support me, and understand me.”

For her, the main goal right now is to have her own studio, as well as her own art supply shop, and ultimately finding a path to happiness, as happiness is her main goal.

“I laugh a lot, and I try to be happy because happiness is my main goal,” she stated. When asked what her personal mantra was, “Above all, choose happiness” was her answer, in keeping with her pursuance of happiness.

Right now the canvas is splattered with colour for the 21-year-old, who is currently working on a project for the Massay Group of Companies.

The young painter, who describes her life in colours hopes to complete her “canvas” while accomplishing what she has aimed to. It’s impossible to doubt that with her The Lake talent, life is not what she paints it.

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Sex, honour, shame and blackmail in an online world (BBC) A BBC investigation has found that thousands of young women in conservative societies across North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia are being shamed or blackmailed with private and sometimes sexually explicit images. Daniel Silas Adamson looks at how smartphones and social media are colliding head-on with traditional notions of honour and shame.

In 2009 an 18-year-old Egyptian girl, Ghadeer Ahmed, sent a video clip to her boyfriend's phone. The clip showed Ghadeer dancing at the house of a female friend. There was nothing pornographic about it, but she

was wearing a revealing dress and dancing without any inhibition.

Three years later, in an act of revenge after their relationship had ended, the boyfriend posted the video to YouTube. Ghadeer panicked. She knew that the whole situation - the dance, the dress, the boyfriend would be utterly unacceptable to her parents, to their neighbours, and to a society in which women were required to cover their bodies and behave with modesty.

But in the years since she had sent the video, Ghadeer had also taken part in the

Egyptian revolution, taken off her hijab, and started to speak out about the rights of women. Outraged that a man had attempted to publicly shame her, she took legal action.

Although she succeeded in having him convicted for defamation, the video remained on YouTube - and Ghadeer found herself attacked on social media by men who sought to discredit her by posting links to it.

In 2014, sick of the abuse and tired of worrying about who might see the film, Ghadeer made a brave decision: she posted the video on her own Facebook page. In an accompanying comment, she argued that it was time to stop using women's bodies to shame and silence them. Watch the video, she said. I'm a good dancer. I have no reason to feel ashamed.

Ghadeer is more outspoken than most Arab women, but her situation is not unusual. A BBC investigation has found that thousands of young people - mainly girls and women - are being threatened, blackmailed,

or shamed with digital images from the innocently flirtatious to the sexually explicit.

Obtained by men - sometimes with consent, sometimes through sexual assault - these images are being used to extort money, to coerce women into sending more explicit images, or to force them to submit to sexual abuse.

Revenge porn is a problem in every country on Earth, but the potency of sexual images as weapons of intimidation stems from their capacity to inflict shame on women - and in some societies, shame is a much more serious matter.

"In the West, it's a different culture," says Inam al-Asha, a psychologist and women's rights activist in Amman, Jordan. "A naked picture might only humiliate a girl. But in our society, a naked picture might lead to her death. And even if her life isn't finished physically, it is finished socially and professionally.

People stop associating with her and she ends up ostracised and isolated."

Most cases of this form of abuse go unTurn to page XXII ►►►

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reported because the same forces that make women vulnerable also ensure they remain silent. But lawyers, police, and activists in a dozen countries have told the BBC that the arrival of smartphones and social media has sparked a hidden epidemic of online blackmail and shaming.

Zahra Sharabati, a Jordanian lawyer, told the BBC that in the last two or three years she has handled at least 50 cases involving the use of digital images or social media to threaten or shame women. "But in the whole of Jordan," she says, "I think the number is far higher - not fewer than 1,000 cases involving social media. More than one girl, I think, was killed as a result of this issue."

Louay Zreiqat, a police officer in the West Bank, says that last year the Palestinian police cybercrime unit handled 502 online crimes, many of which involved private pictures of women. His compatriot Kamal Mahmoud, who runs an anti-extortion website, says he receives more than 1,000 requests for help every year from women across the Arab world.

"Sometimes the photos are not sexual… a photo of a girl not wearing a hijab could be scandalous. A man could use this photo to pressure the girl to send more photos," he says. "The Gulf countries are facing blackmail on a huge scale, especially girls in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain.

Some girls tell us, 'If these photos are made public, I will be in real danger.'"

In Saudi Arabia, the problem is so serious

that the religious police have set up a special unit to pursue blackmailers and to help women who are being threatened. In 2014 the then head of the religious police, Dr Abdul Latif al-Sheikh, told a Saudi newspaper, "We receive hundreds of calls every day from women who are being blackmailed."

Further east, Pavan Duggal, a lawyer with India's Supreme Court, talks of a "torrent" of cases involving digital images of women.

"My guesstimate is going to be that we are seeing thousands of such cases [in India] on a daily basis," he says.

And in Pakistan, Nighat Dad, head of an NGO dedicated to making the online world safer for women, says "two or three girls or women every day" - about 900 per year - contact her organisation because they are being threatened.

"When women are in a relationship they share their pictures or videos," she says.

"And if the relationship ends, not on a good note, the other party misuses the data and blackmails them - not only to remain in the relationship but to do all sorts of other weird stuff."

But it goes beyond blackmail. Nighat Dad is also starting to see a disturbing link between smartphones and sexual violence.

"It started from intimate pictures, but now it has a very grave connection with rape itself," she says. Before these technologies, when perpetrators used to do rape they had no idea how to silence the woman… But now technology brings another aspect to the whole rape culture, and it's to silence women

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

by making a video and then to threaten that if they speak out, this video will be shared online."

The more devastating the consequences of public exposure, the more power the perpetrator has over the victim.

One young woman from rural Tunisia told the BBC her story from a women's prison on

Amina Sboui: "Yesterday a group of men tried to shame me by sharing a private video of me dancing with friends. I am writing this to announce that, yes, it was me in the video, and no, I am not ashamed of my body." (BBC photo)

the country's north coast. It began when she was sexually assaulted and photographed naked by a friend of her father.

The images left her at the mercy of her abuser, who subjected her to months of sexual violence, while also blackmailing her for money. It was not until the man threatened to rape her younger sister that Amal reached her limit. She invited him to her house and murdered him with a meat cleaver. She is now serving a 25-year prison sentence.

Another young woman, the 16-year-old victim of a gang rape in Morocco, set herself on fire in July this year, after her rapists

threatened to share images of the attack online. The eight accused were trying to intimidate the girl's family into dropping the charges against them but instead drove her to suicide, as she suffered third-degree burns and died in hospital.

It is in India and Pakistan, however, that the use of mobile phones to record sexual assault appears to be most widespread.

In August 2016, the Times of India found that hundreds - perhaps thousands - of video clips of rape were being sold in shops across the northern state of Uttar Pradesh every day.

One shopkeeper in Agra told the newspaper: "Porn is passé. These real-life crimes are the rage." Another, according to the same report, was overheard telling customers that they might even know the girl in the "latest, hottest" video.

In one example investigated by the BBC, a 40-year-old health worker took her own life after a video of her being raped by a gang was circulated in her village via the messaging service WhatsApp. The woman appealed to village elders for help but, according to a colleague, received no support from a society which saw her as not only sullied by the attack, but even to blame for it.

But the power of these images in conservative societies can cut both ways.

Some women have understood that if they can be used as weapons to shame women, then they may also be used as weapons to attack or challenge patriarchal cultures.

When Ghadeer Ahmed posted the dancing video on Facebook she was not just undermining attempts to humiliate her, but rejecting the very idea that the video was a source of shame.

In 2011, another young woman from North Africa, Amina Sboui, went even Turn to page XXVIII ►►►

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THIS WEEK’S PREVIEW: Oct 31 – Nov.6, 2016 Seven years nah too much fuh wash speck off ah bird neck. Is Sis Patsy up to her old tricks?

James has called an important meeting of the Village Council and what transpires is a shock to most members especially Ignatius.

Sister Patsy has packed home-made whole-wheat bread and pepperpot. Where is she taking it?

June meets Lucille for breakfast at a café and offers her some advice about her marriage.

Will this help to solve the situation they confront when they get home?

Don’t miss this week’s episode.

You can also listen on www.merundoi.org

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Injectable birth control for men holds promise; risks remain (Reuters Health) - Injecting men with two different hormones every eight weeks suppressed their sperm production enough to act as birth control, according to a new study.

The study had to be stopped due to safety concerns, however. An independent safety board found that side effects, which included depression and other mood disorders,

outweighed the potential benefits of the injections.

"Researchers are trying to identify a hormonal male contraceptive that is effective, reversible, safe, acceptable, affordable, and available," the study's technical team wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

The researchers, led by Dr. Hermann Behre of Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, recruited

320 healthy men ages 18 to 45 from several countries. All had been in monogamous relationships for at least a year with women between 18 and 38 years old. The couples did not want to get pregnant within the next two years.

Every eight weeks, the men received injections of long-acting testosterone and progestin.

"Giving testosterone in high doses suppresses sperm production in the male reproductive organ or the testes over several weeks," according to the researchers.

Adding another hormone, "usually a progestin, helps increase the suppression of sperm production to lower levels, in more numbers of men," they continued. "It will also help to sustain it, so that injections may be given less frequently."

In 274 men, or 86 percent, sperm counts dropped to the target of less than 1 million per milliliter of semen after 24 weeks. Normal sperm counts range from 40 to 300 million per milliliter, according to the National Infertility Association.

Four pregnancies occurred among 266 couples over 56 weeks of follow up, the researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

The failure rate of this form of birth control was 7.5 percent, they found. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says male condoms have a failure rate of 12 percent. In women, birth control pills, patches and rings have a failure rate of about 9 percent. Failure rates are below 1 percent for female implants and intrauterine devices and sterilization surgeries in both men and women.

Nearly 1,500 adverse events were reported during the study. About 39 percent were not related to the injections, however.

Of the side events thought to be related to the injections, about 46 percent of men reported acne, about 23 percent reported injection site pain, about 38 percent reported an increase in libido and several reported mood disorders, including emotional disorders, hostility, depression and aggression.

In addition to safety concerns, there are other unknowns about this approach to birth control, said Dr. Landon Trost, who is head of andrology and male infertility at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. For example, in most participants, sperm production rebounded after the injections stopped - but the study only include men with health sperm counts.

"What we don’t know is how it affects men without healthy sperm counts," said Trost, who wasn't involved with the new study.

It's important to realize, he added, that this form of birth control - unlike condoms - would not protect against sexually transmitted infections or disease.

"The question is what is the real practical role for this," Trost said. There may be some use for this approach among men and women in committed relationship, he added.

The World Health Organization, whose researchers are were among those who worked on the new study, currently recommends condoms and sterilization as the only forms of male birth control. ◄◄◄ From page XXII

further: she posted a topless photo of herself on Facebook.

Across her naked torso she had written, "My body belongs to me - it is not the source of anyone's honour." The image ignited a firestorm of controversy in Tunisia.

More recently Qandeel Baloch, who came from a village in Pakistan's Punjab region, used social media to gain celebrity by posting provocative selfies online. Known as the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan, she challenged Pakistani social norms by embracing the sexualised culture of the internet - until she was strangled by her brother in July this year for bringing shame on the family.

The power of smartphones and social media appears not to have been lost on the authorities in Saudi Arabia, who, as well as aggressively pursuing men who misuse images of women, run campaigns to educate girls about the dangers of sharing photos online. On one level this is an important measure to protect Saudi women, but the urgency of the response may also reflect a recognition that technology has the power to change patterns of behaviour and ways of thinking - and that it is already opening up a new front in the battle over what women can and cannot do with their bodies.

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XXIX

Your Facebook sharing can reveal hidden signals about you “What’s on your mind?” This is how Facebook greets its 1.7 billion active users every day. It’s also a question that countless psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors have asked their clients at the

start of a session; a question we instinctively ask of a friend or family member looking troubled.

Our social media activity can give extraordinary – and often unintentional –

insights into our mental wellbeing. Little wonder that professionals whose job it is to look after our emotional health are now exploring how they can use these signals to take the ‘emotional pulse’ of individuals, communities, nations and even the entire species. This is one of the topics that will be discussed at the BBC Future’s World Changing Ideas Summit in Sydney in November.

WHAT DO MY SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS SAY ABOUT ME? The types of posts we make and how

frequently we make them say much more about who we are and what’s going on in our lives than the words themselves. A study of 555 Facebook users in the US found that extroverts were more likely to post about social activities and everyday life, and to do so frequently. People with lower self-esteem tended to post more often about their romantic partner, neurotic individuals turn to Facebook for validation and attention-seeking, while people with narcissistic tendencies are more likely to use status updates to boast Turn to page XXX ►►►

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about their achievements or wax lyrical about their diet and exercise regimes.

Another study suggested that people who post lots of selfies are generally more narcissistic and psychopathic, while those who digitally tweak their photos a lot may actually have low self-esteem.

ARE PEOPLE USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS THERAPY? Anyone who’s ever dumped an angry rant on Facebook or posted a bleak tweet at 3am will know that there is some form of

self-therapy embedded in our use of social media. But is it just crying into a void that amplifies your problems rather than helps you? The Center of Mental Health and Gender of Mexico, in Mexico City, apparently thinks so, and is reported to have launched a campaign warning citizens that sharing their woes on Facebook is not a cheap replacement for proper psychological therapy.

But the void is listening, and it could help. Researchers are looking at how people’s status updates or Twitter posts might be trawled for red flags suggesting they are at risk of suicide, for example. Australia’s Black Dog Institute – headed by Helen

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

Christensen who will be presenting at BBC Future’s WCIS event in November – recently conducted a study using a computer program that monitored two months worth of tweets for certain suicide-related phrases or terms. Human researchers and a software program then classified the tweets that appeared to raise concerns. Both the human coders and software had a high level of agreement, which opens up the possibility that software could be taught to identify cries for help, and perhaps even alert family or doctors.

Some online communities are also recognising the significance of suicide-related

warnings in posts, and organising their own support networks. Reddit’s Suicide Watch site was set up to offer a way for the community to respond to and support atrisk members. While the bear-pit of online communities does still generate the inevitable complement of trolls in these situations, many of the responses show a genuine desire to help a fellow human being in pain.

A lack of social media networking can also indicate mental health problems. One study is using a Bluetooth-enabled app to map the patterns of a young person’s social Turn to page XXXI ►►►

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connectivity, so it can detect when that person is interacting less with their friends and withdrawing from those networks, which is often a sign of depression.

DOES SOCIAL MEDIA REVEAL ANY BIGGER EMOTIONAL TRENDS? Communities, nations and humanity as a whole often go through ups and downs together. The Black Dog Institute and CSIRO – Australia’s science agency – have joined forces to take the emotional pulse of the en-

tire planet with their “We Feel” initiative.

By monitoring public Twitter for a large selection of emotion terms, and also picking a random 1% sample of public tweets, they analyse an average of 19,000 tweets per minute to work out how the Twitterverse is feeling at any moment in time.

The result is a map showing the relative percentages of different emotional states – surprise, joy, love, sadness, anger, fear – in different parts of the world. It reveals how these emotional states wax and wave in response to various national and global events.

The Hedonometer Project also taps into

the Twitter stream to get a sense of the relative happiness of different languages including English, French, Arabic and Indonesian. Using text from Twitter, newspapers, Google Books, and even movie titles, they found the 10,000 most frequently used words in each language, then got native speakers to rate each word on a positivity-negativity scale.

This analysis revealed that we generally do have a tendency towards positivity and happiness, although Spanish and Portuguese seem to be particularly upbeat languages compared to the rest.

The team is now using this same ap-

XXXI proach to analyse the average happiness of Twitter, and show the impact of events such as the US Presidential debates (a drop in happiness), Brad and Angelina’s divorce (another drop) and the legalisation of samesex marriage (increase in happiness). They are also using this approach to look at how happiness correlates with other factors, such as socioeconomic status, geography and demographics across the US. So next time you browse social media, take a moment to reflect that what you are reading and sharing is revealing much more about what’s going on inside our heads than first appears.

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Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

Brazil boy regains smile after losing all his teeth (BBC) Six-year-old Ryan Coutinho wasn't used to smiling.

He felt embarrassed after losing almost all his teeth at the age of three.

Now he does. And can't stop showing it.

But getting here wasn't easy, says dentist Amanda Mattos.

The boy lives in a rural area near Guajeru, a poor town in north-eastern Brazil. He had his teeth pulled out as a result of early cavities. Only a few on his lower arch remained.

Ms Mattos, 25, met Ryan for the first time two years ago, during a social project at the boy's school.

"I had never seen something like this," she told the BBC. Ryan's teacher told her that he avoided smiling and did not engage much with other students.

Ms Mattos offered to treat the boy after contacting the boy's mother through the teacher. But the mother refused, believing that her son would be reliving the drama of his operation.

"They are all very modest, live outside the town and didn't understand the procedures," the dentist said. "They were still shaken by the process that removed all his teeth."

Ryan's story could have ended here. But two years later, by coincidence, his mother got a job as a cleaner at the public clinic where Ms Mattos works.

Soon afterwards, the boy had a pain in one of his remaining teeth. He went to the clinic for treatment and met Ms Mattos again.

"I asked him what he wanted. He smiled and said: 'a smile like my friends'," the dentist said.

The mother was still reluctant to accept the treatment. But she later talked to the father and they finally agreed to take up the offer.

The town's public health service did not pay for the procedure, so Ms Mattos, who owns a private clinic in a nearby town, brought equipment and offered to do it for free.

For several weeks, Ryan visited her after school to take X-rays and impressions. He was disappointed every time he returned home without his new teeth, Ms Mattos said.

Then, on 14 October, two days after Brazil's Children's Day, he finally got a new smile - a denture for his upper arch.

"We all cried. It was very moving," the dentist said.

Ms Mattos says Ryan's permanent teeth will not come out.

When he reaches 18, he can opt for dental implants. She says she will continue to assist him.

The dentist shared the story on Facebook, and it has gone viral in Brazil. She has become a guest on TV programmes and many other parents have approached her with similar cases.

"I'm really surprised by the reaction, it's unexpected," she said.

"I guess all the reaction has to do with the complexity of the case. And because people aren't used to generosity any more. So when they see cases like this, there's commotion."

And Ryan, she says, cannot stop smiling.

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Aries Although you're known for initiating action without a lot of fanfare, setting your plans into motion seems like an uphill battle now. Only yesterday you couldn't find a reason to say no; today you might not be able to say yes. Your current self-restraint is a blessing as long as you don't take it too far. Thoughtfully consider all the logical reasons to keep your big ideas to yourself. But continue to feed your dreams for they will still fuel your next great adventure when you're ready.

Taurus You might overreact to someone's emotional intensity today without even realizing that your feelings are so rigid. However, you can make progress toward reaching your dreams if you have the courage to entertain alternative possibilities. The fixed Scorpio New Moon occupies your 7th House of Others, making it look like someone else is the one who is so obstinate. Nevertheless, taking responsibility for your own role in any relationship improves the chances for a satisfactory outcome.

Gemini No matter what anyone tells you, imagining a healthier lifestyle isn't enough to manifest one. However, envisioning a daily schedule that includes proper diet, sufficient exercise and mental relaxation can set you off in the right direction as long as you're willing to take the next steps. Fortunately, the Scorpio New Moon falls in your 6th House of Routine, empowering you to stabilize the patterns you put into motion now. A Yiddish proverb warns, "Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow."

Cancer Making healthy improvements in your lifestyle doesn't have to be as overwhelming as you imagine. Don't toss the baby out with the bathwater and change so much at once that your daily routine is thrown into chaos. Instead, take advantage of restrictive Saturn's alignment with sweet Venus by eliminating one unhealthy indulgence of your choice. A single modification that endures is better than many that don't.

Leo Your work schedule is overbooked with so many things to do that you don't have much time to pursue more creative endeavors. You might need to temporarily resign yourself to curtailing your activities, even if it means keeping to yourself today. Thankfully, your fantasies offer you a pleasant escape route even if they're not the same as reality. Slip away and enjoy your daydreams without making a big deal about it now. Just remember that the real world and all your responsibilities await your return.

Virgo You might hold your feelings a little closer to your chest today. Your insecurities are peaking at a critical point; your anxiety can actually prevent you from being as effective as you imagine. But self-restraint also works in your favor because emotional expression pulls you away from your regular duties. As long as you're busy defending your passions, you're not working productively on the job. Proactively putting your softer side on display empowers you to take responsibility for your feelings. Vulnerability is the gateway to intimacy.

Libra You are standing on a solid foundation today and are capable of building the tallest tower without danger of it falling down. Nevertheless, negative self-judgments can steal your opportunity for success before you have the chance to make something big happen. Start slowly and methodically; continue to strengthen your base while you add on to your original idea. Bob Marley said, "You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice available."

Scorpio You are no stranger to the far reaches of your own subconscious. The evolutionary Scorpio New Moon energizes your 1st House of Self, touching you with emotional intensity that fuels profound change. But its connection with spiritual Neptune pulls you out of your personal story and sets you into a more universal framework where everything has cosmic significance. However, you are still the central character in your play, so bring the focus back to your heart. You are growing and morphing in ways you do not yet understand. Don't give up; significant shifts take time.

Sagittarius You have a suspicion that the current events in your life are more important than they seem. In fact, you might believe that your behavior could ensure your happiness or prevent it. However, it's tricky to know what's really happening while the mysterious Scorpio New Moon intensifies your 12th House of Destiny. You're only capable of seeing your dreams, whether you're awake or asleep, so don't confuse your vision with the truth. Nevertheless, as author Colin Wilson wrote, "Your imagination should be used not to escape reality but to create it."

Capricorn Although there are numerous forks in the road, you have a one-track mind as you stare at the top of the mountain. The insistent Scorpio New Moon highlights your 11th House of Long-Term Goals, motivating you to cling to your vision without regard to the circumstances you encounter. Nevertheless, it turns out that your own imagination is more of a distraction than you realize. Dreaming your future is a viable plan as long as you know where the truth ends and your fantasies begin.

Aquarius You're fiercely ambitious about achieving an important life objective over the coming weeks and you're not willing to settle for less. Your powerful intentions are you secret weapon as the magnetic Scorpio Moon energizes your 10th House of Public Recognition. Don't allow anyone else's negativity interfere with your dreams. Trust your psychic powers to steer you in the direction you need to go.

Pisces You can believe in something with such an unwavering intensity that your intention alters the fabric of reality. Clever Mercury aligns with the unwavering Scorpio New Moon in your 9th House of Big Ideas, inflating your plans until they are too grand to fit into your life. However, visionary Neptune is working behind the scene, setting the stage for real magic to occur. Belief in your own dreams is such a powerful force now that nothing can prevent them from coming true.

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English 2016-10-30

STUDY SUCCESS Dear Student, What do you think enables you to capture your reader’s attention?

Can you tell it to a study partner without hesitation? Today we’ll study some passages to see what these writers have done to capture reader’s attention. Be wise.

Love you.

WRITING WELL Language Clues What makes you want to continue reading something? How does an author capture your attention?

Read Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuous – nor wished to be. There was nothing notable about him, except for a slight contrast between the holiday gayety of his clothes and the official gravity of his face. His clothes included a slight, pale gray jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver straw hat with a gray-blue ribbon. His lean face was dark by contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler. There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the gray jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or the straw hat covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe. For this was Valentin himself, the head of the Paris police

and the most famous investigator of the world; and he was coming from Brussels to London to make the greatest arrest of the century.

COMPLETE THE FIRST EXERCISE 1. Which three facts from the passage above make you personally want to find out what happens?

2. What kind of story is this? How can you tell?

3. You are a scholar, and a scholar is a detective. Just as the detective must be observant, so the scholar must constantly observe how language is being used. Can you explain how the author uses the word ribbon in the first sentence?

4. What does the author want to say in, “He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler”?

5. Why didn’t the author just come out and say that the man was carrying a loaded revolver and that he was a very smart police officer?

6. Write the difference between recording the facts and telling a story?

7. In what kinds of books can we find facts? Where else?

8. What makes you want to go on reading the story that was started above?

A CLEARER UNDERSTANDING Have you noticed that the paragraph above introduces one character? Yes? But we need another character in this story, don’t we, in order to create conflict struggle, and plot? What master criminal has drawn the great Valentin to Lon-

don? Here is the beginning of the next paragraph in the story: Flambeau was in England. The police of three countries had tracked the great criminal at last from Ghent to Brussels, from Brussels to the Hook of Holland; COMPLETE THE SECOND EXERCISE 1. Write three questions that come to your mind about what will happen next in the story.

2. a) Look up the word detective in your

dictionary. Write down what you find there. b) Look up the word detective on the internet.

3. What is the difference between a story about a detective and the information you found in the dictionary and on the internet?

4. Mystery and detective stories always fascinate man. Why is this so? Write one for the newspaper at school?

THE PASSAGE W. Somerset Maugham, a fa-

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Had I but served my God with half the zeal I serv’d my king, He would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616), Henry VIII mous English novelist and short story writer, comments on how a character is constructed. He wrote: The writer does not copy his originals. He takes what he wants from them – a few traits that have caught his attention, a turn of mind that has fired his imagination – and therefrom constructs his character.

As you read the following passage, “The Great Hunter,” give some thought to how Uncle Fred has been “constructed.” Does the writer tell you everything he knows about his uncle, or does he tell about a single trait that has

ful hunt. He haunts all the local sporting goods stores.

Last year Uncle Fred prepared with more than usual care for his annual hunt. He tracked down special ammunition for his various rifles and outfitted himself and his station wagon with enough equipment to keep an African safari on the move for a month.

Uncle Fred left the night before the hunting season opened and stayed up in the hills for four days. In the evening of the fourth day, our eager, searching eyes were rewarded by the sight of the hunter’s caravan returning. What would he have in the back of the wagon? What tales of high adventure would he tell? What great dangers had he overcome? We rushed into the driveway and surrounded Uncle Fred.

Solemnly, he let down the tail gate and undid the folds of a tarpaulin. Instead of a noble deer with branching horns or a wild pig with sharp tusks, there lay – silent in death – a jackrabbit. Uncle Fred had finished his hunt.

fired his imagination?

My Uncle Fred lives in Utah.

When the cool weather begins to creep down the mountains, he starts to think about hunting.

He cleans his rifles, polishes his shotgun, and repairs his camping equipment. He digests whole books hunting for deer, tracking mountain lions, and cornering wild pigs. He bombards manufacturers of hunting equipment with letters requesting information about new devices that guaranteed a success-

A CLOSER LOOK AT UNCLE FRED 1. What trait of Uncle Fred’s caught the writer’s attention?

2. Which do you suppose Uncle Fred enjoys more – the hunt or the preparation for the hunt?

3. Verbs have been described as “words that carry the burden of communication.” List the verbs in the composition above about Uncle Fred. Has the writer selected verbs with high communicative value?

Chronicle Pepperpot October 30, 2016

Bollywood Movie Review

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Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (Reuters) In one of the most prescient lines in Karan Johar’s “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil”, a character tells another: “Only the insecure hide behind big words.” This might as well have been a comment on the film, with all the verbosity that is encompassed in 157 minutes of this romantic drama.

For someone who has so far made what are at best fluff films about teenage love and romance, Johar seems intent on showing that he has grown up. But packing almost every minute of the film with heavy-handed dialogue (written by Johar and Niranjan Iyengar) shows he still lacks depth in filmmaking. Love is compared to wet mud and cancer, and boyfriends to movies. Also, no one seem capable of going a minute without articulating what they are feeling.

Leading the pack in the “I can’t stop talking” brigade is our hero Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor), a rich man-child (one character calls him a baby without a pram) who doesn’t have to worry about a job or paying rent. He spends all his time feeling sorry for himself because Alizeh (Anushka Sharma) isn’t in love with him. Alizeh, in turn, is hopelessly smitten

by Ali (Fawad Khan) and thinks of Ayan only as a friend. A heart-broken Ayan finds solace in the arms of poetess Sabah (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) but he still can’t get Alizeh out of his mind.

The characters hurtle through impromptu holidays in Paris, through glitzy disco numbers and lavish weddings. But in terms of storyline, nothing actually moves. Some scenes remind you of Imtiaz Ali while others have a decidedly Sanjay Leela Bhansali feel, but Johar doesn’t seem to be sure of his voice. His characters talk as if they are spouting lines from a book and offer so many homilies about life and love that they are likely to put self-help books out of business.

In attempting to make a grown-up love story, Johar parodies his biggest strength – he makes fun of the whole dancing-in-the-snow-in-a-chiffon-saree genre that he and the Chopras are known for. But he is also unable to make the leap to the Imtiaz Ali school of film-making, and ends up in a no-man’s land.

Of the cast, Ranbir Kapoor manages to bring some empathy to what could have been a very whiny character, while Anushka Sharma is too smarmy and smug for her own good. It is Aishwarya Rai, who speaks the least and flutters her eyelashes to full effect, who is the most effective performer. Fawad Khan doesn’t have much to do in his miniscule role. “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” has neither gravitas nor the charm to be worth remembering.

Entertainment

Elvis Presley beats Madonna to album chart record (BBC) Elvis Presley has broken the record for the most number one albums by a solo artist.

The late singer's new album The Wonder Of You has beaten competition from Lady Gaga and Michael Buble to become his 13th album to top the chart.

Before now, Elvis and Madonna were tied record holders with 12 number one albums each to their names.

His widow Priscilla Presley told the Official Charts Company he would have been "so thankful" for the achievement.

She said: "I am incredibly proud of all he has accomplished and so grateful to the UK fans who have kept his legacy alive with all of their support.

"I hope they continue to listen and love his music as much as I

Wonder of You is Presley's 13th number one album

Will & Grace: NBC in talks to revive TV sitcom

(BBC) TV network NBC are in talks to reboot Will & Grace, after the success of a US election-themed video, according to reports.

The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed talks about a 10-episode revival are under way.

There are said to be no deals in place with the show's stars or creators yet.

Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes were together again in Los Angeles on Thursday night for a Hillary Clinton fundraiser.

The cast were brought together for the first time in a decade in September by one of the show's creators, Max Mutchnick, for a short film based around the US election.

The 10-minute clip has had more than six million views on Youtube.

Speaking at the time, Messing - who plays Grace - told the Hollywood Reporter she would "never say never" about a

revival.

She hinted that a streaming channel could be a natural fit because a return to network TV could be a problem, due to the cast members' busy schedules.

"I think that the logistics of all of our lives - there would just be way too many things to hammer out. But for something shorter-lived and maybe having the limitations of being on network TV lifted may give us a fun, fresh opportunity because we could be really, really naughty!"

Will & Grace ran for eight seasons between 1998 and 2006 and won 16 Emmy awards.

The show, about interior designer Grace and her gay flatmate Will, earned praise for bringing gay television characters into the mainstream.

The cast was rounded off by Will's best friend Jack and their socialite friend Karen.

It is still a hit on syndicated TV.

All four lead actors won Emmy awards for their performances

do."

In Elvis's newest album, his original vocal performances are accompanied by music from The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The singer, who died in 1977, is now second only to The Beatles, who have 15 number one albums to their name.

This week's top four albums were all new releases - with Michael Buble's ninth album Nobody But Me debuting at number two.

Lady Gaga's fourth solo album Joanne entered the chart at number three. All her previous solo albums have reached the top of the chart.

Leonard Cohen's You Want It Darker landed at number four, while last week's number one WALLS by Kings of Leon, dropped to fifth place.

Further down the top 10, Status Quo's Aquostic II - That's A Fact debuted at seven, while a new deluxe edition of Sia's This Is Acting helped the album climb 35 places to number eight.

Korn's 12th album The Serenity Of Suffering debuted at number nine, giving the band their first UK top 10 album since 2002, and the cast recording of the new David Bowie musical Lazarus was new at 10.

Other new entries included Jimmy Eat World's Integrity Blues (number 21), The Pretty Reckless's Who You Selling For (23), and Melanie C's Version Of Me (25).

The top five of the singles chart remained entirely unchanged this week - with Little Mix's Shout Out to My Ex hanging on to the top spot.

Bob Dylan now says will accept Nobel prize for literature (Reuters) American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature earlier this month, has now told the Swedish Academy that he will accept the prize.

The notoriously media-shy Dylan had not made any comment on the 8 million crown ($900,000) prize, despite repeated attempts by award-givers the Swedish Academy to contact him

since it named him as the winner on Oct. 13.

The Nobel Foundation said in a statement that Dylan this week told Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, that he now accepts the prize.

The committee that awarded the Nobel Prize to Dylan had said it was up to him whether to attend the prize-giving ceremony later this year or not.

"It has not yet been decided if Bob Dylan will attend any events during the Nobel Week in Stockholm in December," the Nobel Foundation said on Friday.

"The Nobel Foundation will share information as soon as it is available."

Separately, Dylan told British daily the Telegraph in an interview that he will be at Nobel Prize ceremony, if he can.

Singer Bob Dylan performs during a segment honoring Director Martin Scorsese, recipient of the Music+ Film Award, at the 17th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards in Los Angeles January 12, 2012. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo