Kila Siku

I think one week is enough to begin anew.  Another day another foggy blog.

Watching traditional fisherman at work is one of the most powerful things I have ever seen.  I would like to think that I have always had a romantic relationship with the sea and all that occurs there, but this may not be true.  Seeing rows of dhows lined up in dark, murky waters with sinewy fisherman pouring glittering streams of fish into buckets and sacks upheld by men and women is truly incredible.  It is as though these men rage an endless undeclared war against that which gives them life.  I have never known what it is like to be a fisherman and probably never will.  The profession is more of a way of life as it is passed down like sturdy furniture.  The sea has the fisherman's soul and his soul is his boat.  The dhows I have seen are like the favorite stuffed animals of children, torn and battered from years of tireless love and necessity.  Each boat has its own named brightly painted on the side in whitewashed letters.  One that I saw yesterday said "Ndiyo Mzee," which means "yes sir," a pretty fair homage to the trade.  What else can one say to an unpredictable source of food? Now, the fish stores are really running low.  Overfishing and global warming is swiftly reducing local populations and leaving the people to rely on other sources, such as fruits and other produce from the sister island of Pemba.  One of the more tragic scenes of the fish markets is seeing squids and octopus hung out like drying sea grass.  I have a soft spot for these creatures of the deep.  They are incredibly intelligent animals who have no chance against the spears of hungry people.  In order to hunt for squid, one must go out at night and cast a small amount of bait.  Squid are mostly nocturnal predators, and will eagerly rise to close enough to the surface to be blinded by quick flashes of light from fisherman.  Shining light quickly into the water paralyzes the squid so that they can be easily caught.  It is one of the many sad examples of marine exploitation, but for some people it is nevertheless a necessity.  One way to combat this process is to simply not buy or eat them, which is not a problem for me anyway.  For all the brains in the supple bodies of octopus and squid, they taste like shit to me.

From water comes food but also death.  To be so reliant on a single system that is at its breaking point is very dangerous, but as it stands there cannot be another way.  Zanzibar's second method of generating income and cheap food is through the fisheries; the first is tourism.  Except the food part.  Well, maybe a few fleshy foreigners with hairless legs might get "lost" near the Red Colobus preserve, but otherwise tourism only generates money.

And once again my timer is counting down.  I will try to update this post or have a re-post or have a post for my post-thesis about a post-modern post-person.  Berry good. Abrupt ending starts now.