'BUT OUR COMMITMENT IS TO STAND AND TAKE THE NEXT PUNCH'

Someone asked me some time back why I do what I do and what keeps me fulfilled in what I do. I answered by telling them this story:

In October of 2010, I volunteered to be shipped to Axim in the Western region of Ghana. It is a popular fishing community that is home to all the fishing gears in Ghana’s artisanal and semi-industrial fishing industry. It was also popular during the pre-independence days of Ghana; it’s where Pa Grant hails from! His grave sits just behind a ‘drinking spot’! I opted for Axim not because I was familiar with the community. In fact, I had never lived anywhere in the Western Region before. I chose Axim because I followed my untamed sense of adventure. I think it’s the same primordial sense that made the Fante fishermen so audacious on the sea!

My job was simple: profile the community. How hard can this simple task be right? Well, it wasn’t difficult save for days my friend and I had to walk 4 hours from far away communities because transportation wasn’t available or days we had to sit 8 in a shared taxi because it was either that or walk the distance. Our accommodation was a comfortable 8 x 10 feet room with a small rectangular window overlooking the community. The room was unbearable hot from the unforgiving tropical sun. The fan was useless in the face of the heat. When turned on for solace, it only circulated the hot air enveloping our small room. We had to bid our time outside at night for the room to cool off before going to bed. It was a struggle waking up in the morning because you hardly get enough sleep and you couldn’t sleep in too with all the racket from fishermen getting ready for their fishing expedition. There were days I couldn’t just be bothered because of swollen feet from the previous day's endless walk from community to community. There were days I wanted to run out of my room just to sling a stone at the unsolicited timekeeper behind my window – the cock that never misses to remind us it was a morning with a crow at the break of dawn. Ah yes! The megaphone across our abode bellows the efficacy of some nameless herbal mixture! That was another annoying one that punctuated your sleep at 5 in the morning.

It wasn’t all depressing once you stepped out of my room. I lived and dined with fishermen from crew to owners of boats. I learned a lot from ageing chief fishermen. Their teaching will start with astrology and end with oceanography. I got to hear the story of poverty told first-hand by a single mother of 9 who hustles on the beach to feed her family. Her best days were when there was bumper catch and lots of fish to carry from the beach to smoking sheds. I have seen canoes sail out to only return with a dead crew and no fish. I saw Axim virtually come to a halt when there was no fish and burst into a frenzy of activities when the nets bring back home a catch. That is how important fishing is to this community and other coastal communities dotted along our 550km beach stretch. Fish isn’t just food it is money – I mean legal tender. On Tuesdays was when you got a sense of what I am saying – the market comes alive and farmers from hinterlands bring their produce and it is purchased with fish. Yes, it sounds like what you are thinking, trade by barter!

I became one with the community and I saw life through the eyes of the people of Axim – through the eyes of fishermen. I met wonderful people from both home and away – David Mills, Badjeck Marie-Caroline, Anne Delaporte, Froukje Kruijssen, Uncle Kakra, Apese, Nana Kojo Eshun (late), Uncle Ebo, Uncle Payin, Glenn Page, Tendayi, Kwabena Ameyaw Asiedu and many more – who thought me a lot about what I do today. The time I spent in Axim opened me up to embrace development work, to appreciate the need for natural resource management. These are the experiences that have shaped my life, and my work and continue to motivate me to do what I do. It comes with a paycheck but that isn’t the most important; it’s the lives that I get to touch and leave behind as a legacy. The knowledge that doing the little that I can help to keep a tradition, and the culture of a people alive keeps me going. Don’t get me wrong the financial remuneration is good; like Opera said, “...don't get me wrong, the cash is a good thing. You get to buy lots of shoes with it”. Hahaha….

Now, when you’ve lived this life with those who depend on the resource, then you will understand the disconnect between the policy made to manage the resource and the resource users. You get angry at the system when you see letters such as this from people who you’d think should know better! I seriously hope this is not true Mr Minister. Managing Ghana’s fisheries goes beyond politicking! It is either the law is enforced as it stands or you review the law and redefine what is legal and illegal within our fisheries taking into account our socio-economic context.