Rose, age 35 hook the shrimps that previously has caught with a net walking up an down in the water. There are 350 hooks on a rope and she will have to go one by one hooking each shrimp. Once this is done, her and another woman will go to deep waters and through the rope while the boat is moving. This whole operation takes around 3/4 hours and sometimes they do this twice.
Felice, she doesn’t want to tell me her age, “more than 50 and she laughs”.
She does this kind of fishing since she was a young girl, her parents were also fishermen. The went back to their country of origin, Nigeria.
Felice fishes three times a week. She uses 500 hooks attached to a rope, between hooks there is a space of three meters. The bay that she uses for s are shrimp that she will catch earlier by holding a net between two people and walk several times a distance in the shallow waters. Each time she will empty the net into a bucket. Once the shrimps are on the hooks we will go on the boat to deeper waters and will throw the rope while the boat is running. After a short while we will start collecting the rope with whatever she has caught.
Normally she will go with her son, Jean, age 24. Felice never went to school but her son does.
Jean uses the technique of a hollow piece of certain wood to listen to the fishes, this way they know where the fishes are.
This technique is used mainly by fishermen of Benin.
Whole fishing families from Togo, Guinea and Benin migrate to Gabon’s unexploted coasts to be able to continue fishing. As they said their coasts are over fished and they can hardly find anything anymore.
Whole fishing families from Togo, Guinea and Benin migrate to Gabon’s unexploted coasts to be able to continue fishing. As they said their coasts are over fished and they can hardly find anything anymore.
Whole fishing families from Togo, Guinea and Benin migrate to Gabon’s unexploted coasts to be able to continue fishing. As they said their coasts are over fished and they can hardly find anything anymore.
After a whole day of fishing. The boat will arrive straight to the market where women will be waiting ready to buy fresh fish and sell them in another market or smoke them.
Fishermen empty bucket or sardines and get them ready to smoke them.
Fishermen untangle their nets in their village.
Men get ready to go fishing for the day.
A woman picks some fish to sell them in the market while carrying her baby on the back.
A group of children from the fishing village, play in a canoe imitating the adults.
Hundreds of sardines are carefully placed and get ready to be smoked.
A morning scene in the fishing village.
A barber cuts one of the fishermen’s hair.
A couple of children do the laundry of the whole family.
A young girl steps out of her house carrying a jug of water.
Jean, age 24 goes with his mom to catch the shrimps that will be they bay for their fishing day.