Fish and the Sea


In the part of Kerala where we are living, much of life revolves around the sea. In the morning the men go out to set their nets. Women wait on the beach, then carry the day's catch around on their heads.

The other day we arrived at the beach early enough to watch one crew push their boat out to sea. They paddle these rather large and heavy wooden boats with paddles that have round ends, about 6-8 inches in diameter. Six men have oars, and somehow they're able to make the boats really move. As far as we can tell, the strategy is to paddle way out putting in their nets as they go. Then they paddle back in with a rope connected to the net. Once they beach the boat, two or three guys do their best to pull the boat up the steep beach while the others begin pulling in the rope. Eventually all six to eight men are pulling in the rope, like a big tug-o-war against the sea. The guy at the rear coils up the rope as they pull it in.

We haven't been around when they bring in the actual nets. My guess is that the women bring their buckets down to the beach and sort and load the fish into them. Some of the fish wind up on rickshaws to be taken into town. The women with fish in their buckets then walk the streets selling their fish. Last week we got some shrimp and Suchi made a pretty good curry. She also fried up some mackerel. Today we got another kind of fish, for which Rahul said there is no English word.

The nice thing about the women delivering the fish is that they carry a knife and cutting board and clean the fish as part of the price you pay. Below are pictures of the fish and the woman who brought the mackerel and shrimp last week.


Posted: Tue - December 27, 2005 at 12:01 AM          

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