Thoughts of a minibus traveller

  Painting  "Take the brush  and put something on the canvas" Nigel Niix Butler from Nine Nations advised us. "Just start.." as he applied different colours and layers on one side of the large canvas.  Alvina Naughton from The Village Nook explained why she liked doing abstract art as she moved her brush on the opposite side of the large canvas which was in the middle of a group of about 10 people Sun cooling as we like to say in Guyana.  My hands start moving with brush and so even as mind trying to work out what to paint.  I mess up a few leaves doing leaf print - you have to use the back of the leaf as Alvina advised, and a thin layer of paint.. but I thought I know everything.. and so we start on our small canvases and then move to the big canvas.  Canvas which has some lines , but blank otherwise. The way we sitting down around the big canvas, I imagine this could be like a puja,.. a large havan. Alvina and Nigel as the pandits, and the canvas a...

L - image from Nigel Niix Butler; R- Image from Dominic Fernandes   Mouth..  Dominic Fernandes showed the man the Pledge by Men to End Violence against Women and Girls . The man said 'I don't do dem things.. me mout aint got cover, if I see any man being like duh I would holler pun he'.  Hot Thursday afternoon, first groundings since December 2024. Books laid out on an old freezer left near avenue, or owned by a cool down vendor. Hot dog stand opposite in front of the GRA building. Sherlina Nageer, Dominic Fernandes, Nigel Niix Butler and I  started on the Camp Street Avenue.   Sherlina leading on the discussions about access to safe abortion  . Dominic, Nigel and I engaging men about the pledge to end violence and about questioning ways of being a man generally.  Nigel set up two stools and started painting when we moved to the nice cool spot at Camp and Robb Street.  Groundings now evolving - Rodney; books and gaff;, books, poems and gaff; ...