During my visit to Ibeno Beach, Akwa Ibom State, I met Mr. Akpan Ebeno, a fisherman. This is his story:
“I’m mending my net against tomorrow night. I can’t go tonight because there’s no more fish in the water, but there’ll be fish tomorrow night, because the water will carry another set of fish to us. The one it carried before has finished. I usually go fishing around 5pm and I stay in the water till 12am. Sometimes, I spend the entire night in water. We can toil the whole night and not catch a fish. Last night, I didn’t catch any fish. Sometimes we catch 7 or even 12 fishes, it depends.
I don’t go too far into the water otherwise I will enter the waters of another man’s country. The Cameroon officials on the boundary give us too much trouble. They beat us a lot. They don’t allow us go near their water, and there are lots of fishes there. In fact, the fishes there are surplus.”
Talking with Mr. Akpan was a nice experience. It made me realize how much people risk for the ones they love. He goes into the water just to find fish to feed his family. Sometimes, he comes back with none, but that doesn’t stop him from going again, because, it didn’t work today doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work tomorrow.
Ibeno, Akwa Ibom (Nigeria)