Putting Fish Back on Bicycles

These five fishmongers - from left to right, Abdul Manaf Haroon, Seyalhali Mohamed Faiz, Hajji Mohamed Mohideen, Aboobucker Mohamed Kadafi, and A.L. Naleer Lebbei - are getting back on the job thanks to EFFORD and Mercy Corps. Photo: Jeff Greenwald/Mercy Corps

The fish are back.

A scale in his hand and a diving mask hiked up his forehead, M.P. Sahid – a fish trader in Trincomalee – watches as a group of two dozen local fishermen empty a huge coir net on the beach, filling woven baskets with the first good catch since the tsunami. Paraw and barracuda flop on the sand, fins glinting in the morning light of an already hot day. There are at least 350 pounds of fish here, worth several hundred dollars to the trader.

Before the tsunami, there were several ways the residents of Kinniya could buy their fish. One of the most convenient was through fishmongers: members of the Kinniya Fishermen’s Cooperative Society who, equipped with bicycles, fish boxes and scales, peddled as far as 10 kilometers offering nearly 50 varieties of seafood caught in the coastal waters.

“More than 3,000 bicycles were lost to the tsunami, in this district alone.” A. C. Nisardeen sits in Kinniya’s small office at the Eastern Forum for Resources Development (EFFORD), flanked by his two sons. He’s an ever-smiling, contagiously ebullient man of 42, wearing a rugby shirt, with narrow reading glasses balanced on his nose. “The fishmongers lost everything: their cycles, wooden boxes for carrying the fish, knives and weight and balance sets. We asked them if, in addition to these things, there was anything else they wanted; and they asked also for straw hats. These, too, we will give.”

Seventy-five fishmongers will soon be back in action, thanks to a collaboration between EFFORD and Mercy Corps, with funding from the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. Seventy-five new bikes – sturdy, India-made Lumalas – have been purchased, along with sea-green bike racks. The fish boxes were made in Kinniya by local carpenters. The knives were fashioned by local blacksmiths, who forged the broad steel blades out of recycled automobile leaf springs. Nisardeen hands over one of the tools; it’s more a mini-machete than a dainty fillet knife.

EFFORD was established in 1998 by a group of friends and colleagues discouraged, as Nisardeen put it, “by the inability of our country’s decision-makers to make decisions.” The group included lawyers, surveyors and teachers, united in their desire to provide assistance to Sri Lanka’s war-torn society (Nisardeen himself is a civil engineer). As Kinniya is predominantly Muslim, EFFORD’s initial projects focused on peace-building between the local community and the separatists of the LTTE: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, whose often violent struggle for an independent Tamil state has claimed 30,000 lives since 1983.

“We sponsored seminars, and held peace-building discussions with other areas,” says Nisardeen. “Our efforts to reach a common understanding have been successful, and some problems between the Muslims and Tamils have been solved.”

Since the tsunami, EFFORD’s projects have had a much more material thrust. The fishmonger’s project is their first partnership with Mercy Corps.

At ten o’clock in the morning, half a dozen bicycle fishmongers arrive at the office, eager to meet a Mercy Corps representative. They’re all excited about the program, and by the prospect of returning to their occupation. Most have families, and plan to use the income to supplement the government rations provided at their refugee camps. Fresh fish will be a big part of that change.

“Peoples’ attitudes have changed,” says Hajji Mohideen, a 44-year-old man in a neatly pressed shirt. “After the tsunami, they were afraid of the sea, and afraid to eat fish. Now, they are eating, the same as before. We, too, are eating fish again.”

A much-younger fishmonger, wearing an O’Neill cap, is clearly relieved by this turn of events. “After the tsunami, I thought I’d have to become a farmer,” says Aboobucker Kadafi. “But it wasn’t possible, because I had no experience. It’s a good thing we are provided these tools and equipments, so I can go back to business, because I really don’t have the ability to do anything else!”

Before I leave the office, Nisardeen – a man of boundless enthusiasm – shows me an unexpected perk: the fishmongers’ custom-made T-shirts. They display the Mercy Corps and EFFORD emblems side by side, within the outline of what might be a tuna. “The shirts themselves, of course, must be brown or maroon.” He explains. “If they are white…” Having cleaned a few trout, I nod sympathetically.