Monday, March 7, 2011

'Fishtitution' on the lakeside



Updated 4 hr(s) 3 min(s) ago
By Peter Oduor
It is a Sunday afternoon and a cool breeze is blowing from the lake. Wafting on the breeze is a smell that is mildly acrid and fishy. It is a smell that defines the beaches of Lake Victoria.
From one of the poorly constructed rental houses comes barroom sounds and a drunken young man singing the song I’m not sober staggers by:
"Anyisi...Isero nyar joKarungu. Isero nyar joKarungu, anyisi."
The song gets dirty after this but simply put, he is telling some other young man that he is seducing the wife of the man from Karungu.

This is Kamariga beach in West Uyoma, a template of how many Lake Victoria beaches look like.
On one part of the beach are women busy spreading omena (dagaa) fish on nets to dry.
Two of them stand out. They have short hair that is dyed pink and yellow, oily faces and everything is either in the wrong form or place.
They sit next to each other, applying make-up poorly. They represent the meeting point between fish and prostitution. They are the story of ‘fishtitution’.
The fishing business consists of the boat owners, the fishermen and the ‘middle women’ popularly known as jaboya.
If you need any assistance in this business, you must approach these people in that order.
Middle womanOn most beaches, the women are attached to one boat or different boats owned by the same man. Due to the manual nature of the fishing business, fish prices depend on the whims and moods of the fishermen.
When they have decided the price, it is the ‘middle women’ who take over the selling and distribution.
Getting to become a jaboya for a boat is the fulcrum on which fishtitution revolves.
Being a ‘middle woman’ for any boat is a position that comes with many goodies including a daily assurance of fish to sell, a chance to wield power at the beach and money if you are good at bargaining.
More often than not, this position is secured in exchange for sex. The fishermen decide who gets the post and in most cases, the person is young, pretty, recently widowed or has a drunkard for a husband.
Miriam is one such woman. She has two children and is widowed. She comes to the beach early in the morning and will be off by 11am. All she does is wait for a specific boat, get the day’s catch, sell some, carry home a little for lunch and then wait for a knock at the door of her rented house in the evening by the leader of the boat.
They will have sex and then he goes off for night fishing. This is the way she has kept her job for the last two years.
When six young men got off a motorboat at Remba Island from the mainland sometime back, all they had in mind was to fish for two months, sell some of their catch and bring the remainder back to the mainland once the two months was done. That was their plan, at least. They did not know that on the island was a group of old women who preyed on young men from far off places.
These women are so well organised that when young men step off the boat, they all agree who goes for whom so that two of them never go after the same man.
Mostly widowed, they are what might be called the queens of the island; they have money and can take care of the poor young men. And as a young man walks around the beach, he soon realises that there is a certain woman who is friendly and accommodating. Before he knows what is happening, he will be taking meals at her house, and then she will put the young man in charge of her fish store and her money.
With his loyalty bought, she is ready for the kill. She seduces the young man and before long he is confused and operating like a zombie.
Many such young men end up forgetting their homes or if they ever go back, they will be destroyed and ill.
Wakiaga of Riat in Kisumu Rural fell victim to one such woman. They went fishing in Remba in what fishermen call safar, and were to fish for two months and then go back to the mainland.
He knew of the existence of such women but swears that what happened to him is beyond his comprehension. They stayed for three weeks and on the fourth, he was living with a certain woman.
"I only remember that she was good to me, and knew what I wanted even before I asked. Soon she put her shop in my care and I don’t know the rest," says the teary, thin, red-lipped and tired dark young man.
They say he is infected with HIV, something that has visibly scared him, and the telltale signs of the infection can be seen in his broken frame, sunken eyes, red lips and bony structure not to mention the aches in all parts of the body and a close association with all kinds of infections. His family is cursing the island and beach queens.
Then there was this discussion on Ramogi radio where a young woman who found a suitor and took him home to meet her parents.

The girl prepared everything and informed the neighbours to come meet the man of her life. The name she had mentioned to this point was Mark.
The old men were ready and punctual with their mouths watering with anticipation and tongues full of wisdom. The mother of the girl was also in her Sunday best, a flowing kitenge and fancy headgear.
Six monthsSoon, three men strode into the homestead looking sharper than Kanda Bongoman in their pointed shoes and creased trousers, not to mention godfather black caps. One, though, was in white. It was obvious that he was the man of the occasion.
When the greetings had ended, the mother of the young girl came in with her friend to greet the gentlemen — and stood there looking like she had seen a ghost. She knew the man in the white suit. She had lived with him for over six months when she had gone to try her hand at selling fish on one of the beaches.
There was history in the room, a lot of it, intimate history. They shook hands as though everything was normal and then left.
The mother of the girl then asked one of her trusted friends to go and ask her daughter who, among the three, the suitor was. When the girl came smiling with the information, the mother broke down. History was intertwined and very ugly.
The mother of the girl revealed all.
The father of the girl could only say, "No cow is leaving my compound!"

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