My interpreter, Andry, has been with me now for a month. He’s suffered through my show of google slides on fish quality and marketing for three workshops, and by now, he could just do it by himself without first me talking in English and he in Malagasy.

I knew he liked to fish from the first days we met. But it was not until the last few days that he told me his grandfather has 8 fish ponds, and that not only does he like to fish, he sells the fishes he catches. He does all freshwater fishing. Mainly tilapia and big ass eels from what he tells me, in the river near his home, as well as tilapia and maybe carp from his grandfather’s fish ponds.

I brought a heavier duty collapsible spinning rod this trip, as I wished I’d had one in Ecuador. We didn’t get to use it much, but I knew from about day 2 I’d be leaving it with Andry. I showed him how to cast in Belo sur Mer, and he spent a whole day casting from shore. I didn’t bring the right tackle for casting, and he didn’t catch anything, but he was thrilled to have the spinning rod, as he just uses a cane pole at home.

When he told me he sold fish, that gave me a little spark. After working with three groups of fishermen, all who say catches are bad and getting worse, I wasn’t sure how much help I could be giving them tips on taking care of and selling fish if there’s no fish to catch. Andry fishes in freshwater, and it sounds like maybe that fishery is better, so maybe he will be my unintended benefactor of this training.

He loves kids.  He showed kids some videos on his phone in Menaky.  Then handed them all 10 cents in their local currency so they could buy some candy.

It seems like the coastal ocean fishery here may be doomed. The catches are going down, people use mosquito nets for fishing to catch the smallest of fish, the foreign trawlers are fishing offshore, and from what I’ve seen (not seen, really) there’s little stock assessment and even less enforcement of laws, if there are any laws to protect the health of the fish stocks.

Many of the fishermen and market women expressed interest in fish farming. I’m not sure it would work well here on the coast, as the soil is sand so it won’t hold water. Using pond liners or building concrete ponds might not pencil out as cost effective in comparison to fish value out of them. And are there any feeds available. It wouldn’t be prudent to use any fish based fish feeds as then they’d just be taking fish out of the ocean to feed their fish on the land. The ocean along this stretch has a big surf, so I don’t think you could hold cages or net pens to grow salt water tilapia either.

Today, we bought 6 kilos of fish just caught in the morning, and 6 kilos of salt. The salt was big grain, so we used a mortar and pestle to make smaller grains.

I helped one of the wives clean the fish, then showed them how to salt the fish in layers.

Everyone else was out working, so we were done for the day. When the boat didn’t come for awhile, we wandered down to the beach to check out the red seaweed farm.

Ladies were planting new lines by taking larger pieces of seaweed off lines, separating them, and then replanting the smaller pieces on new lines.

The same wife I helped clean and salt fish was there, and Andry and I helped her plant a line. We sat in the sand in the water, and the Indian Ocean was warm. I chatted through Andry about how we plant Alaska kelp, and soon we had our line planted. The lady said before we started, and just in passing, that she paid 400 ariary to plant a line, and when I asked for our money, she said she had to dock me 100 ariary for eating some of the seaweed. Tough boss.

We went back to the landing and watched beautiful sailboat after sailboat sail in, on their way, apparently, to the salt mine at the head of the “inland sea” to haul salt.  When our boat arrived, two others asked to go to town. An old, somewhat feeble Pa with a tattered bucket hat, and a middle age man in good health. I put the Pa in the padded middle seat in front of the steering console – the most comfortable seat on the boat – out of respect.

When we got back to Ecolodge, 3 Frenchmen came in at the same time in a guided canoe with outrigger with a PILE of fish. The biggest was about 50 lbs. A couple were bright red.

Then, the French husband owner of the Ecolodge showed up in their side by side ATV. I thought to pick up the fish. But no – they had a man who needed medical attention. Four men carried him to the boat I just got off, and away they went. To Morondava I assume, but not sure. I later found out it looked like the man had an appendicitis.

I helped the Pa off the boat, and went up to look at the fish. Then the Pa comes with his his hands out. First I thought it was to thank me. Then I realized he wanted money. As always, I never know what to do in this situation as in all the crowd of people, I stand out as the big white guy. I thanked the Pa, took a photo of the fish, and walked up to my room to get out of the situation.

They covered the fish on the beach, at least. But the fish weren’t bled and not cleaned. And had been in the sun. The red ones were bloating.  I was the only one who cared, of course. Apparently they will send the fish on ice to Morondava to sell.

Another great session with fishermen in Mekany today. The ladies were selling little fish they’d dried by the gobs to a buyer who had arrived, so it was just us men for the most part. We talked about the fishing business – avenues for sale, different fish products, planning for the big catches when prices would plummet by salting their fish to smoke them later and sell them at higher prices. We also showed them a weather app, windguru, and a chartplotter app, Navionics.

Then came a question that really got me tongue tied:  are you rich from selling all the fish?  I would always say I’m rich – because I have everything I need, I’m healthy, and all the money all need for the rest of my life. About anyone who knows me would never say I’m rich. I have a little crappy house, drive a crappy car, heat with wood, drive an old truck and about everything I have I bought used. To anyone sitting in our meeting under the shade of a tree, who make less in a month than they pay me in per diem for a day, and who were selling their dried fish for 30 cents a pound today, I’m a gazillionaire.

So, I uhmed and aaahed and didn’t really have a good answer for them. And that, I think, is how it should be. Because maybe there is no good answer.

Belo Sur Me

We traveled to Belo Sur Mer by boat from Morondava. About a 1.5 hour ride in relatively calm waters. We’re staying at Ecolodge, owned by a French couple. Nice thatch bungalos at the entrance to the cove. The husband was a realtor and the wife a social worker from what I could understand. They had visited Madagascar once or twice, found this place online for sale, and jumped in. The bungalos are nice. Beds with mosquito nets, shower and sink and toilet and running water. They run on solar power. There are lights in the rooms, but no outlets. If you need to charge something, you take it to the bar, where there are power strips for this purpose. The couple are wonderful hosts. There’s a restaurant in the middle of the compound. The food is very good. Seafood from the nearby sea. Fish and crab.  It would be a perfect place if it weren’t for the mosquitoes that come out at night. One little crack in the mosquito net fortress and one gets in and invites all their friends.

If you’re up at 5 am, you’ve already missed a lot. Dozens of boats are already in the distance fishing from their canoes with their sails up. The entrance to the cove is right in front of my bungalo, and about 50 yards wide  at low tide; I have a front row seat as the fishermen paddle by. .   I saw a group of people coming along the beach. When I heard the singing, then a cross, I figured it was church. When I saw the little casket carried on men’s shoulders, I understood it was a funeral procession. I sat on my porch unnoticed. The women sang a song in Malagasy. Maybe the most beautiful singing I’ve ever heard. The women wore bright formal lapas around their waists like the one presented to me in Betania.

When the group got around the corner, they were now on the beach outside of the cove. I then saw a large canoe and several smaller ones emerge from around the bend. Perhaps they are taking the deceased to a distant island where there is a graveyard. Not long after, many of the procession returned down the path to town. Almost all women. Smiling and in lively conversation.  Mostly they past by age. The younger, faster walking women first, and the grannies bringing up the rear. Maybe it is the men’s work to take care of the ceremony in the canoes from here. A person wants to ask the passersby about the ceremony and what just happened, but some questions are more appropriately left unasked.. And glad I did not. I found out from the others later a young boy with some sort of limb deformity drowned yesterday while washing his clothes in the cove. The size of the casket fits the story. So sad. With no way to preserve the body, the casket must have been made yesterday and today the burial.

As I watch the fishermen leave for the sea, I think about their lives, sitting below the sea surface in their canoes, and living much of their lives with 20 inches of free board. Their craft are perfect. The canoe with a single outrigger, almost always on the starbard side of the canoe. The outrigger stabilizes the canoe, with the weight of the outrigger bending the canoe towards it, and the flotation of the outrigger pushing back against the canoe. Physics in action. I’ve only been out in the craft once in any sort of a chop – just 1 to 2 foot seas – but the craft didn’t wobble or tip in the least. A 20 hp outboard pushed our craft loaded with 5 of us with ease. The fishermen use sails.

They certainly live every day, with no two days at sea the same. They see changes to their environment that man’s invented instruments can measure, but only in numbers. Climate change and foreign trawlers vacuuming up their fish before they get nearshore where they can catch it is their reality. They receive all the impacts of the outside forces, but receive little of the benefits the industrialized society created. Perhaps a little improved health care and a cell phone. But no power grid. No mass transit system. Not even a dock for their village. Retirement isn’t a concept. Never did it make sense to save money, if you had any to save, because the inflation on this paper you exchange for goods is so high that what a dollar will buy this year, it will take a dollar fifty to buy it next year. You work til you can’t work anymore. Then maybe someone will take care of you.  You hope your good deeds in your lifetime now provide some level of care from your family. But of course, they have to work, too. Elders with skin that still shines – the men still with well defined biceps and grannies who can squat to sit with their heels against their bottoms – still limber as a teenager from a lifetime of physical work outside. “Development” agencies are now offering them programs like aquaculture and mariculture and tourism to give them livelihoods which they can’t make from the sea anymore. My guess is the fishermen would rather have the pittance back from the sea that they used to take with their primitive craft and simple fishing methods, rather than have their fish caught offshore by foreigners and now have to find a new job. Like climate change, it seems no one in the world has the strength to stop trawling as a fishing method. Anywhere in the world. Even when we see the evidence of its impacts.

More fishermen continue to leave the cove in their boats, chit chatting to each other as they paddle. Maybe these two grew up together. Perhaps both will have their own boat someday, and fish side by side for a lifetime.

It’s been great to have another Peace Corps volunteer on this assignment. 30 years my junior, but we both get the inequities of the world having had the mutual Western privilege of our government sending us to live in rural Africa for two years.  All expenses paid.

Several of the others went out on a boat to an island today to snorkel and have a picnic. I couldn’t bear the notion of more sunburning on my pasty white vitamin-D deprived body from all the years in Alaska under long sleeve shirt and pants. I’m already burned trying to keep covered, and with so many more little workshops still ahead of me, I thought it best to sit tight in the shade. I don’t feel like I’m missing out. There’s so much to see here in a day. A canoe with what I assume is a husband and wife, laden with heavy bags of perhaps trade goods like salt or rice or beans, either just bought or taking in to sell. People on the distant beach across the cove digging up sand and putting it in a mosquito net and sifting through it, looking for what I do not know.