Fishing Trip – Karen Style

While visiting Sangkla Buri we were helping to lay a concrete floor for house extensions, digging a pit for sewerage, and beginning to build another toilet. One afternoon we took a break from our labours and went on a fishing trip. But this wasn't just any fishing trip. We set off, a few of us piled into the cab and the rest in the back of the ute. We stopped off at a friend's place and collected some nets, bamboo poles, and a crinkle-faced little old lady.

Off we drove, winding round bumpy, overgrown country tracks, hunting for a good fishing spot. The first place we got out was too deep for net-dragging, but a couple of the guys still gave it a go. A few other boys were dispatched with sacks to gather cow pats for the garden, as people often grazed their cows or buffalo on the fertile river flats.

We headed to a new spot, leaving two of the guys to walk. Apparently they said not to wait, but I saw them running and shouting after the ute as we drove off so I'm not so sure.. ;)

At the next place the old lady and Dee's sister in law teamed up with one of the nets, and a few other guys teamed up as well. Blair took off with his own net, hurling it hopefully into the river from place to place, then pulling it back up again.

We girls followed a couple more kids across the river to gather edible flowers and leaves from the trees there. We filled a couple of sacks and then two of the boys seized them from us and dragged them back across. A couple of other kids went around the banks and submerged trees to check for big black river snails. Apparently all the children love them – the adults not so much..

Eventually all the troops were rounded up and the catches displayed. Each of the guys had caught a few little silver ones, but the toothless granny triumphed, scooping out 10 or 15 one by one from a mysterious fold in her sarong. She then settled herself in the tray of the ute, a whisked out a fat handmade cigarette and a lighter from her headscarf, not a bit damp!

On the way home we also gathered some long green bamboo poles of a particular variety that was good for making bamboo sticky rice. So there we were – packed into the back, with fish, bamboo, cow dung, leafy greens, and many happy muddy people.