Fishing is a man’s job. A woman would never be caught dead helping bring in the fish. We women are allowed to watch though. So that is just what I did. I heard a big commotion going on down by the water, so I grabbed Calvert (an 8 year old boy that lives with us) and we went down to watch the men fish.
The scene that greeted me was one of extreme excitement and commotion. It seemed that everyone out there had a job and they were all helping each other. There were about forty men from the ages of four to sixty and there were about fifteen boats, both local canoes and small skiffs. The boats were arranged in a U corralling the fish towards the shore with a huge net that the men held. The men on the skiffs were throwing locally made fish traps into the water to scoop up the fish and then haul them back to dump the fish into the boat. This was my favorite part because the men would lose their balance and fall or jump off the boats and then pop back up and hop back on the boat like nothing happened. The young boys had hand held nets that they used to pick up one or two fish here and there or swam around with a mask to secure the nets. It seemed like every one out there was yelling something at the same time and just having a good ol’ time bringing in the fish for the women to cook!
They did just that too! My host father, Simion, brought about 30-40 Mackerel home that were a little longer then your hand. He gave them to my host mom, Bibianna, and Sylvia, and I to prepare and cook. I scaled them and sliced them (kind of like you would a hot dog) and put garlic salt (thank you mom!) on them and then bar-b-qed them. YUM YUM! They were good too!
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