The hardest part was convincing people that I'm Haitian...

So these were some of the contestants I was forced to choose between last night as a judge of the Miss Exotika contest, (minus Rosalyn, the Vietnamese girl who was MIA). The seven judges (four men - three whiteys and one older Haitian and three women, all Haitians) were given sheets and asked to evaluate the contestants on three criteria, their articulation, presentation (the ol' catwalk) and presence, (which the four male judges surely interpreted as hotness).

Our marks were added up and factored into three predetermined totals that they had already racked up based on their participation in the rehearsals. Some were coming in with as many as 28 points and some as little as 11, therefore regardless of how we voted, some were far more likely to advance to the final five than others. Some like Alexandra, (the excellent well-spoken Russian with the long red hair pictured here) who otherwise acquitted herself nobly, were doomed by this process. Early on all girls were asked to state their dream in life. Most suggested some variation about making it a better world for children. One said her dream was to find her biological father, which got a reaction from the crowd, not all favourable, perhaps male audience members worried that it might be them.

I was a little surprised Sephora didn't make it to the next level (pictured here with white hoody and giant smile), she must've been close to making it, I think she might've had a tattoo on her arm which isn't always a great idea, (although last year's winner showed up head shaven with a biggie tramp stamp all down her back, not sure if she had the tat when she won though).

Of the 15 girls, five made the next level: Nadege, Keisha, Josiane, Carine and Jihane (check the Miss Exotika link above to see all candidates). The final five all had to do some sort of show of talent and then answer a question. Nadege did a dance with her boyfriend which was drab but fared well in her question which was: "if you had 24 hours left to live, what would you do?" She replied that she'd "pray and ask forgiveness for all the bad things I did." This got much applause.

Keisha, who was slightly heavier than the others, wore a long denim dress and did a sort of peasant dance with a Haitian flag. It was flawless, her question was something like, "your friend is heartbroken, what do you tell her?" (the "your friend ...what do you tell her?" was a frequent formula). Like the others, her reply was a bit too brief for my liking. She suggested that she'd just be supportive and not judgmental. They all answered something along these lines.

Josiane's talent display was preacher-style speech asking why there's so much cruelty in the world and unfairness to children. Some of the audience was chatting, the mike a bit echo-ey and so the spoken format didn't work as well.

Jihane, a Lebanese girl with a big family cheering section - some waving the Green Tree flag - did a sort of Lebanese-looking belly dance wearing a skirt laden with shiny metal circles that clinked when she shimmied and swiveled. She knows how to dance.

Carine read her story a spirit coming to her room and giving her advice, which at the end she recognized to be her father. It was heartfelt and gutsy, she moved about dramatically and even wept a bit at the end. Carine had mastered the technique of making serious eye contact with the jury which surely helped her score but her reply to the your-friend-is-in-a-crisis question wasn't too great, she just said she wouldn't say a thing, she'd just hold her and reassure her. So based on their excellent dances, (I felt bad for those who didn't make the final five as undoubtedly their talent performances will never see the light of day) - Keisha (with the brown shirt) and Jihane (dark long hair) motored through to the final two thanks to their baking shaking.

Both had vocal fan support but the Lebanese Jihane Chiccru - who's very pretty, perhaps not the tallest, most svelte model you'll ever see, but nonetheless quite striking - won and deservedly so. Congrats to her. The hosts, a Haitian woman, former contestant (name?) and jovial, chubby Haitian film director Raynald Delerme, both did well.

My fellow judges included Daphney Augstin who works as an agent for fashion models (she pointed out that the tall Russian Lana who didn't make the final five, has the best potential for runway modeling), a cool young Greek community radio guy named Bobby Giorgas (name abbreviated for brevity). He has a show in Greek all Saturday afternoon. Past runner-up Melissa Francois (she's just finishing a Statistics degree at Con U and planning to enter a national beauty pageant, she's much hotter than the photo on the link) and Nicolas Montmorency, the city's youngest and undoubtedly best-looking city councillor who however looked a bit exhausted perhaps due a day dealing with pesky, unrelenting citizen requests.

A slew of beauty pageant winners from other contests also showed up clad in tiaras, including New York Haitian Miss Citronelle and a really adorable 9 year old kid named Miss De Demain.

The entertainment between events ranged from excellent to terrible. The showstoppers being six young local Haitian male dancers called Fresh to Death. The worst being a gospel singer who awkwardly insisted on getting to sing two songs rather than one and a rap duo whose standard "yo, yo" thing didn't win much favour. I shot a few seconds of some of the other acts, the three girls are from Ottawa and the boy/girl singing duo was excellent and I'll add their name as soon as I can figure it out, here are a few seconds: