I joined the new Media Team to help address the third Peace Corps goal: To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. There are nine team members from all five regions of the country, and our function will be to support other PCVs with photography, video clips, audio recordings and news releases when creating content for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other venues. I am not as competent as many of the younger team members, but I am happy to have this opportunity to learn new skills and promote Peace Corps The Gambia (PCTG).

Akshay Deverakonda, and Haddy Sowe organized three days of hands on learning activities at the PC office in Kombo for the new Media Team. Akshay is an Agriculture/Forestry Volunteer, having arrived in country in October 2015 and will be closing his service in January 2019. He was posted to the Central River Region for two years, where he focused on gardening and tree planting. As a third year PCV, he assumed the role of Communications Specialist in January 2018, and takes photos and makes videos for PCTG. Haddy works for PCTG as a Communications Staff Specialist, and has many others duties she preforms to keep us PCVs on track. She is a very articulate woman and a wonderful resource for all PCVs. A short YouTube interview of Haddy was a teaching tool at our IST.

For the second day of the Media In-Service we were divided into three groups, given a location to visit, and our destination was the Tanji Fish Market. The assignment was to develop a video and slide show from our observations. I was fortunate to be paired with Dan Wolin and Harry Dwinell, who are great mentors. Dan is very personable with good language skills, which made integrating with the local fisher people much easier, because a foreigner with a camera can meet lots of resistance. The key for us was to hang out on the beach, just watching the action, before asking permission to take photos.  After receiving permission and sharing our photos, most people were comfortable having us take more photos. Harry is an outstanding photographer-videographer and gets very involved in his subject matter. He even wadded into the surf and boarded a boat to get some great shots. Now that I have a new iPhone 7s, I could contribute some photos for our project.

We arrived at the Tanji Fish Market about noon and proceeded down to the beach, where we saw rows and rows of beautifully painted boats. This area is a small-scale commercial fishery, using traditional artisan boats that look like large canoes made with planks of wood. They can have small motors for use in the ocean, but the fish are very plentiful, can be netted close to shore, and many boat were tethered by long ropes to the beach. We learned that the fishermen either go out at dawn, returning at mid-day, or leave late in the afternoon to fish at night, returning in the morning. The fish are then carried in buckets through the surf to waiting lines of wheel barrows. We watched one man with a load of fish on his head stumble, spill some fish, then a boy quickly grabbed a handful of fish, and proceeded down the beach to sell them. It is also possible to wade into the surf and catch the fish by hand, and one women was just strolling through the surf picking up fish and putting them into her bag.

The whole process of bringing the catch into shore, dumping them into wheel barrows, sorting the different varieties and distributing them, looked like controlled chaos to us. But after awhile it was apparent the some of the men were overseers, making sure the system flowed correctly, but we never saw any money change hands. We discovered that most of the fish is already under contract to vendors in the city, and a lot of the fish is smoked. One man gave us a lengthy description of the smoking process, but the smoke house was way up the beach and we didn’t travel that far. Smoked dried fish is a staple food here, sold in all the market areas, to be pounded, mixed into a sauce or made into to fish balls.

In the late afternoon the morning fleet was pulled into shore on the long rope lines. Once out of the water a team of men would maneuver the boat above the high water area with the aid of logs. I took my first video on my phone and it is a bit rough, but I hope with more practice I will improve my technique. If you look closely in my video you can see Harry pushing the boat, then he gets his camera, and walks beside the boat to take his own photos.

It was a beautiful clear mild day to observe a way of life we hadn’t been exposed to up country. After reviewing all our photos and videos, we agreed that our story was going to be about the boats, distributing the fish along the beach, and these wonderful fisher people. I am excited to be part of the new media team, and when our first videos and slide shows are completed, I will update this blog post.