"me mout aint got cover" - Groundings 2 October, 2025

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; books, free hugs and gaff; now the books, gaff about health and wellness; Nigel's painting on the pavement and gaffing with men about how they could end violence against women and girls.

 God is in charge 

"Who is in charge?" the woman, a medical professional, asked. She said we were promoting abortion and she did not agree with abortion for religious reasons. She said she would refer people who came to her. Hot sun in my head and I said.. 'God is in charge.. is God bring we here..' and Sherlina looked at me like my head not good (because we doing groundings). Woman smiled and said "Are you a missionary?"  and I said no no, but God is everywhere. We gaffed with her about health, food, well being and she stayed on. 'Yall doing good thing being out here" she said.

"Is a good thing you doing" 

God had kept coming up when abortion came up.  Another man said he don't want to hear anything about abortion, because it is against God (not even with rape or when mother's life in danger). He was very strong about it. He was walking with his teenage son - sorting out documents and so for the boy to start working and studying. The son read the pledge ' I don't drink or do drugs, I am muslim', and he took the QR code for the pledge to read and share. There was more conversation and I learned he knew some of my relatives. 'Is a good thing you doing, this humanitarian work' he told me.

Men's Violence.. drugs, being gay..

One man understood the pledge. He felt that many of the men who killed women, did so after the women found out that the men were gay.  Another man said that drugs is contributing to men's violence, he works in security. 

"I am fearless" another man told me.. "I have military training". "I don't deh around no man who would get violent ".. he also was concerned about drugs use, in his community.. "the only two business going up is Chinese supermarket, and rum shop .bar.. so plenty more drinking and places to buy malli and drugs".  

Another quiet man, said he is Christian, he don't like abortion, but he is conflicted as he would not want any girl to be forced into motherhood. He said he gives advice to his customers. He was not too sure about the pledge, but took the QR code to look at it later.  

Another young man says he is 'violent to myself' when he drinks, he stopped though, didn't take any books, or pictures of the QR code for the pledge.  

"what is going on here?"

 "What is going on here?" a woman asked, walking up to watch as Nigel painted. She took off her shades , asked him if not painting the oranges which the man had around the wheel barrow. A young man who was passing stopped behind Nigel - "you giving away the painting' he asked, and waited for Nigel to finish. First time father,, 'going home to wash these clothes and come back to hospital", he said he is ready for fatherhood. He knows it will be big thing. "My daughter will like dis painting" he said, as he has already connected it to her birth.

Other people pass, gaff, some pass and ignore us as they do. Some persons we know, others are strangers. One man came back to ask he if we had any more books about meal plans, he is a cook in the bush and has to plan menus for different needs.

A man who said he is here from Venezuela 'I will go back when Maduro is gone' said he his library had 'one thousand five hundred books' . He worked on ships, and reads English and Spanish, and knows Portuguese. The woman he was walking with, from Cuba, read one of the titles in Spanish.  

Nigel's second painting was of the man selling pineapple and oranges, standing near the leaning yellow pole that used to be a traffic light. Stark reminder that Guyana will never have decent road markings, traffic lights , safe walking for pedestrians.  Two children stopped to look at the painting process. 

The man is gaffing with some of the men at the corner. Taxi drivers waiting on passengers. Faces serious as they are sometimes when sun is hot, and business slow.

Nigel goes up and offers the pineapple vendor the painting. There is a transformation as the man, and the other men near him smile and laugh. 

The traffic light might be dead, but there is a light in the way the men smiled around the painting.

That is what was going on there.