Jenelle Thongs' strut on the cat­walk is fierce. When she speaks she ex­udes friend­ly con­fi­dence, ever so of­ten eas­ing in­to a smile that ful­ly re­veals strik­ing white teeth against her smooth, ebony skin. The Miss Supra­na­tion­al Trinidad and To­ba­go 2020 ti­tle­hold­er ad­mits that she has come a long way from her child­hood per­sona of a lit­tle tomboy who felt un­com­fort­able in her own skin.

In an in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian last Mon­day, Thongs re­mem­bered mov­ing from Bel­mont to Mor­vant with her par­ents and two old­er sib­lings at age six. She would have a most­ly en­joy­able child­hood, go­ing on to par­tic­i­pate in gym­nas­tics, dance, track, foot­ball, net­ball, vol­ley­ball and school choir. But be­ing tall and ath­let­ic with a deep voice made her feel un­fem­i­nine, es­pe­cial­ly among her peers at St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege and the Poly­tech­nic In­sti­tute where she at­tained her sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion. Her Afro-Trinida­di­an hair and choco­late com­plex­ion al­so trig­gered feel­ings of in­ad­e­qua­cy. Added to this was the fact that she was sex­u­al­ly abused in her ear­ly life, she said.

Thongs said at a young age, she had to learn to ne­go­ti­ate her iden­ti­ty and be­gin to em­brace her­self. She had to bal­ance tri­als with be­ing grate­ful for hav­ing lov­ing and ac­cept­ing par­ents, ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and a healthy so­cial life.

“If I had to do it all over again, I would. It’s my sto­ry,” she ex­plained.

“It was cer­tain­ly a jour­ney; one that does not have a def­i­nite des­ti­na­tion. As I con­tin­ue to grow and evolve, so does em­brac­ing my­self. Learn­ing to love all of your­self is not easy. Pageantry re­al­ly aid­ed me in this. How could I want to be a bea­con of hope, an am­bas­sador of con­fi­dence and trail­blaz­er of self-love, if I didn’t start with my­self; if I did not be­lieve these things about my­self? I tru­ly be­lieve my life ex­pe­ri­ences are not on­ly for my ben­e­fit.”

Com­ing in­to her own helped her cop the Miss Supra­na­tion­al crown just over six months ago and it is def­i­nite­ly some­thing on which Thongs will cap­i­talise when she rep­re­sents T&T at the Miss Supra­na­tion­al Pageant from Au­gust 20-22 in Krakow, Poland.

Thongs will be the fifth T&T del­e­gate to the pageant which ranks as one of the Big 5 pageants in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Crowns and Sash­es is the of­fi­cial li­cence hold­er of the Miss Supra­na­tion­al T&T Fran­chise and won the in­ter­na­tion­al Pres­i­dent's “Ris­ing Star Award” in 2019, with the T&T del­e­gate, Yia-Loren Gomez, plac­ing 21 out of 77 that same year. This coun­try al­so placed in the top five of the Na­tion­al Cos­tume and earned spots in the fi­nals of the Top Mod­el and Tal­ent seg­ments of the com­pe­ti­tion.

No stranger to the pageant world, Thongs made her de­but to­wards the end of her teenage years. Be­ing in the habit of em­u­lat­ing her old­er sib­lings, she watched as her sis­ter, Ja­nine, trav­elled abroad, rep­re­sent­ing this coun­try at re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al beau­ty con­tests. Ad­mir­ing her con­fi­dence and ea­ger­ness to be an am­bas­sador for T&T, Thongs fol­lowed suit.

“So, while my sis­ter en­tered her last pageant, I en­tered my first and 11 years lat­er here we are.’’

Over the years, the 5'9” beau­ty has amassed more than eight oth­er ti­tles, in­clud­ing Miss Cari­val T&T 2013 (SVG), Miss Beau­ty T&T 2016, Miss Her­itage In­ter­na­tion­al 2016 (Sri Lan­ka), Miss Caribbean Cul­ture T&T 2017 (St Kitts & Nevis) and Miss Caribbean Unit­ed T&T 2018 (Grena­da). How­ev­er, ath­let­ics had been Thongs' first love and mak­ing it to the Olympics was one of her great­est dreams.

“I love track and field. I still do to this day. I re­mem­ber my very first race and how ex­hil­a­rat­ed I felt. I was on­ly five years old and at that mo­ment I knew I want­ed to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go. I en­vi­sioned my­self on a podi­um, with flow­ers and a medal.”

Bal­let, con­tem­po­rary and folk dance al­so en­gaged much of Thongs' time as a teen, and by 17, she fell off of track and field and pressed deep­er in­to her stud­ies with the hopes of be­com­ing a vet­eri­nar­i­an. She com­plet­ed a BSc in Bi­ol­o­gy at UWI and cur­rent­ly man­ages a den­tal clin­ic that has two lo­ca­tions and 12 staff mem­bers; a role Thongs said, she has found to be “very re­ward­ing.”

Jenelle Thongs.

Along the way, the ever-ac­tive Thongs start­ed Carni­packs T&T, a small re­tail brand for Car­ni­val lovers to ac­cess es­sen­tials and the char­i­ty, “Each One Reach One”. As a na­tion­al am­bas­sador and youth leader Thongs is pi­o­neer­ing the “Bridge the Gap” com­mu­ni­ty service ini­tia­tive through which she hopes to pro­mote so­cial in­te­gra­tion and teach life skills.

Thongs said spir­i­tu­al­i­ty plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in her life, along with her sol­id sup­port sys­tem of im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly and friends. She was thank­ful for her moth­er, the “epit­o­me of strength,” her fa­ther for teach­ing her to de­fy the odds, her sis­ter for show­ing her how to be con­fi­dent and her broth­er for help­ing her to be un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly her­self. She al­so cher­ish­es the ar­eas in which she grew up as they in­spired her sense of com­mu­ni­ty, the beau­ty queen said.

De­scrib­ing the pan­dem­ic as a “whirl­wind”, Thongs said she did not feel cheat­ed that COVID in­ter­rupt­ed her reign. In­stead, it had sim­ply been “an un­usu­al year for an ex­tra­or­di­nary per­son” and she hoped that she had made her mark de­spite the cir­cum­stances, she said.

Hav­ing chan­nelled her en­er­gies in­to vol­un­teer­ing at the TTSP­CA (T&T So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cru­el­ty to An­i­mals), par­tic­i­pat­ed in beach clean-ups or plant­i­ng trees to aid in re­for­esta­tion over the years, the an­i­mal lover said she holds lit­tle re­grets about nev­er hav­ing be­come a vet or Olympian.

“I may not be on top of a podi­um with a medal, but I’ve been sashed with our coun­try’s name over my heart and in a sense en­tered the beau­ty Olympics.”

To sup­port our Miss Supra­na­tion­al 2020/2021 del­e­gate, Jenelle Thongs, con­tribute to the “Spon­sor a Mile” cam­paign at Crowns and Sash­es, Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd. Chequing a/c: 560 8027 89201.

Miss Supranational TT 2020, Jenelle Thongs.

Q&A with Jenelle

You've par­tic­i­pat­ed heav­i­ly in beau­ty pageants. How do you see beau­ty pageants be­ing rel­e­vant in these times?

I can speak about how beau­ty pageants are rel­e­vant at every stage; from per­son­al growth to com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and build­ing re­la­tion­ships. What I hope is ev­i­dent is that in the midst of all the un­cer­tain­ty one thing is cer­tain, that I am ded­i­cat­ed to be­ing an am­bas­sador to T&T and I am us­ing my plat­form to be of ser­vice to my coun­try. Cur­rent­ly, where the glam­our as­pect of pageantry is at a min­i­mum it shows that the true essence of be­ing a queen is in fact be­ing a ser­vant leader. This is holis­tic. It is about sub­stance and pur­pose; be­ing as­pi­ra­tional and in­spi­ra­tional.

Do you en­counter peo­ple who have neg­a­tive re­ac­tions to your con­fi­dence/pride in your own skin/child­hood neigh­bour­hood? If so, what do they say to you and what is your re­sponse to them?

I usu­al­ly en­counter peo­ple who are sur­prised when they hear my sto­ry or where I come from. I’ve heard that the way I car­ry my­self or speak sur­pris­es them to know I am from Mor­vant. Or, if they see my name they’re sur­prised to see a black woman. I love break­ing stereo­types. So now I make the great­est ef­fort to show that there is no one way a per­son is ex­pect­ed to sound or look. If any­thing, I hope peo­ple see me and be in­spired.

You men­tioned on­line that you re­cent­ly re­ceived the vac­cine. What was that like? Any side ef­fects?

Yes, I have! And I would def­i­nite­ly say if you can get it def­i­nite­ly so. I did have some side ef­fects; fever, body pains, ba­si­cal­ly felt like I was get­ting a bit of a cold, but it last­ed max two days and I feel great now. I’m re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to get­ting my sec­ond dose and do­ing my part of not get­ting back to nor­mal or a new nor­mal but to a bet­ter nor­mal.

Any oth­er in­ter­ests? How do you un­wind?

Read­ing is one of my favourite things to do. I don’t have much time right now with my sched­ule but it’s hands down the top three best things for me. Cre­ative out­lets are al­so very im­por­tant to me so I find my­self danc­ing and writ­ing in those mo­ments when I need to let loose. But now the old­er I get a sim­ple glass of wine and some R&B or Net­flix al­so does the trick.

What's your favourite dish/own cre­ative con­coc­tion?

I love cur­ry! I can prob­a­bly eat it every day with lit­tle to no com­plaint. Buss up shut with cur­ry goat, man­go and pump­kin–must-haves–and pota­to. But if I’m cook­ing, my favourite thing to pre­pare is re­al­ly sim­ple com­fort foods. That can be any­thing from Ra­men to tacos. Once it’s quick and easy and has cheese.’’

What do you like most about be­ing Trinida­di­an?

We as a peo­ple have so much to cel­e­brate. We have dom­i­nat­ed in spaces mu­si­cal­ly, aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, in beau­ty, sports and the list go on. We cel­e­brate the things that make us dif­fer­ent and rel­ish the things that bring us to­geth­er. Be­ing Trin­bag­on­ian is be­ing ex­tra­or­di­nary. I be­lieve that’s in our DNA. And I hope that this is seen in Poland in Au­gust...as I car­ry all 1.3 mil­lion ex­tra­or­di­nary be­ings with me.