When she decided to take on Miss Guyana, she knew that if there were odds stacked up against her, she would work it through with her beauty, charm and her radiant smile.

And she did. She was crowned Miss Guyana on April 13 and won the chance to represent her country in Puerto Rico to participate in the Miss Universe Pageant.

On April 22, Mia checked in at the luxurious Courtyard Marriot Hotel in Washington D.C., just a short walk from the White House.

There, her coaches were Mr. Robert Dover, trainer of beauty pageant contestants; Ms. Laine Angus, Miss District of Columbia and Miss USA first runner-up 2001; Ms. Anita Sanders, former New York and Washington D.C. runway and photographic model; Mrs. Omarosa Satllworth, winner of 23 beauty pageant titles and trainer of a number of beauty pageant winners; American designer Mr. LeRoi Carey; and Mr. Roger Gary, outstanding Guyanese designer based in New York.

Her daily routine while in the US included a trip to the health spa, a three-hour workout session, and steam and Jacuzzi baths.

Mia enjoyed Dover’s sessions, and when she wasn’t getting the walk right, he stepped into high heels and showed her how it’s done!

Mia also did not have a problem with Omarosa.

“She knows what she is talking about. She has been in the pageant industry for years, competed in several as well. She trained the reigning Miss USA. So I had no problem taking advice from her - how to wear my hair, how to work the dress, the shoes”, Mia told the Sunday Chronicle.

Mia came to the Chronicle for the interview. Clad in white sleeveless top and blue jeans, she drove to our Bel Air Park location in her jeep. A suitcase of clothes for a photo shoot was in the back of the jeep. Her hair was simply pulled to the back, and she wore no make up.

Bad for a photograph? That’s what she thought! She didn’t need make up! Cameraman Mike Norville did his magic and the result was, as they say, “picture perfect”.

Friends forever
Picking up her story, Mia said she arrived in Puerto Rico on May 11. She was just in time for a fashion walk. Then it was time to meet her rooming partner, Miss Kenya, Julie Njeru.

“Thank God, I had a good roommate. No problems with her. Julie is a lovely girl. Sometimes I had to be screaming: ‘Julie, we have to go now, Julie get your sash, Julie your earrings’. It was great rooming with her,” Mia said.

Two days after all the contestants arrived in Puerto Rico, rehearsals started.

The main trainer was a man named Scott. According to Mia, you can see him in the Sandra Bullock film `Miss Congeniality’.

“I enjoyed rehearsals. It started off with Celine Dion’s ‘Here comes the sun’. We would walk in and Scott would be like: ‘Oh, ladies!’ (As in the ‘hello, anybody home’, way). And then he’d go, ‘Here comes the sun’ and get the music into fast beat and everybody would be all into it and dancing and having a good time,” Mia related.

Miss Universe is full of glitz and glamour, Mia said, and she wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.

However, it wasn’t fun at all times for Mia and the other delegates.

“Sometimes a lot of the girls complained. They were like: ‘This is just horrible. I feel like I’m just on show. I feel like I’m a piece of meat’. And you did get that feeling sometimes.

“You’re on two hotel floors. There’s a security desk with TV screens and they’re just monitoring your every move. You can’t leave your floor without a supervisor. When you reach to the lobby, it’s barred off, and there are people there as soon as you get off and they’re like: ‘Hey, look Guyana…Brazil’, and you always have to be pleasant. Don’t even think of frowning, don’t even think of looking puzzled. Just smile! Smile, even if you don’t have a clue. Just smile. I built some good face muscles, I can tell you that,” Mia said.

“It’s a lot of stress,” she made clear.

As if that wasn’t enough pressure, days before Pageant night, one of Mia’s chaperones and the Public Relations Officer of the Miss Guyana/Universe pageant criticised her for wearing her hair down and for her choice of gown in the preliminary competition.

“I am the one who was competing in this competition. I had to be happy. I wasn’t going to wear my hair down, but Omarosa told me to. She said, ‘Mia you have beautiful hair, these pageant people love hair, loose it down and work it, make the hair move’. I did that. I’m just more comfortable taking advice from an expert than from someone who’s new,” Mia said.

According to Mia, not all the contestants were what she expected of the delegates. She said she glued with people who were real, down to earth.

“A few friends I will keep in touch with forever are (Ms) Northern Mariana Islands, (Ms) Namibia, (Ms) Nigeria, (Ms) Bahamas, (Ms) Jamaica, (Ms) Cayman Islands,” Mia said.

When it came to pageant night, Mia’s heart pounded furiously.

She was not picked in the top ten.

Disappointed she was.

Despite feeling like the world had come down on her shoulders, she had to put on the “smile” because members of her family were in the audience, waving the Guyana flag and trying to get a glimpse of her.

“I walked off stage, took a deep breath, and decided that it was all over, time to have fun,” Mia said.

“From 75 to ten that’s hard, that’s really hard, lots of pressure. I was disappointed, but I wasn’t who the judges were looking for. They were looking for someone like Miss Russia. And I wasn’t really a Miss Russia. I think she’s a beautiful girl and a wonderful person. I am really happy she’s the one who won. I would have picked her to win! Although I didn’t want to pick a winner, I was trying to save that place for me,” Mia said candidly.

For the future, Mia is considering taking up a job offer to be the Caribbean and Latin American representative of a Miami-based company to promote and recruit models for a new line of clothing and fashion magazine.

It’s no longer what she fantasised about as a child and an adolescent. Mia knows what Miss Universe is and would like to teach the new Guyanese delegate everything that she can.