Abriko Machann
Date of focus group : 01/30/18
List of participants
#3 Female, age 73, Unkwn Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 26, 2nd Grade
#21 Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade
#17 Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education
#31 Female, age 50, 7 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 31, No education
#20 Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade
#5 Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade
#15 Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade
#19 Female, age 31, 2 Children, Fish Trader, No education
#16 Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade
#18 Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education
INTRODUCTION
Tim: We’re not here to provide a service. We are here to do research, and put what we learn in a report. Because we use everything you say to better understand the fishing system around here, the market system, so we can make a report, so we can advise our bosses in HEKS/EPER. Now Ms. Gana will explain more completely exactly whom we work and what we’re here to do.
Gana: Hello, ladies.
Public: Hello.
Gana: How are you?
Public : We’re fine.
Gana: OK, some of you may know me because I visited the market with EPER. My name is Gana. I work with HEKS/EPER……. we’re recording the conversation… to identify the speakers… we don’t even need your names, just the number each of you has been given. If you’re No. 15, just say No. 15…. OK?
Natacha: Hello. Good afternoon everybody.
Public: Good afternoon.
Natacha: My name is Natacha, and I work in an organization called SOCIO-DIG…I’m very happy to be with you, and I’d like to thank you for being here.
Public: Thank you.
Natacha : Tim.
Tim: OK, good afternoon to you all.
Public: Good afternoon.
Tim: My colleagues have explained everything, I believe. We’re just going to have a little discussion so that we can better understand how the market works – what problems you have, what works well, where you sell the most. I’ll let Ms. Gana start the questions. Would you like to start, or shall I?
Gana: No problem, I’ll start.
Natacha: Tim’s starting?
Gana: I’m starting.
[Let me get you a chair.]
Tim : You’re starting?
Gana: Yes.
Tim: You may begin.
Gana: OK. Ladies, what’s important for us is to gather information. We know some things already, like that many of you are mothers, heads of households, right ? And we also know that you have other activities. We’ll talk a little about all that, but first I’d like to know, since you all sell fish, where and how did you start with fish. The first thing I would like to know is how you got your start in the fish business, because you all say you did something else first, right? Where did you start, how did you come to get into the fish business, the fish selling business ?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Fish, we used to sell fish…
Gana: What’s your number?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Number 18. We got into selling fish because we had husbands who fished in dugout canoes. Afterwards they would bring us the fish for us to sell. Eventually they formed the Abricot Fishermen’s Organization, and they put the merchants, all of the big market women started to buy fish to go sell in other markets. Sometimes they go to Jeremie to sell, sometimes they go to Port-au-Prince. We all still sell fish, but when the fishing season is over we take up our other activities. We sell plantains, we buy bananas, we make rice, we buy bulk rice and we resell it to make a little money to feed our children. When the seas are rough and we can’t find anything, we all buy something else. We buy chickens, we do anything we can to have something to sell.
Tim: But you say you sometimes go to Port-au-Prince?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Yes.
Tim: To sell fish?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Yes.
Tim: You, yourself?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Yes, when there’s a lot of fish.
Tim: Is it dried, or…?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Dried fish in Holy Week. [Tim: OK, in Holy Week you sell fish in Port-au-Prince.].
Tim: OK. And you, ma’am. What’s you number, 15?
5 Minutes
Tim: And you, ma’am. What’s you number, 15?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): 15.
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Mine is 18.
Tim: You are 18. 15, how did you get started with fish?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Yes, it’s like the lady said. Our husbands fished, and they would bring back fish for us to sell in the market. And when they formed the organization they asked for 40 merchants. With those 40 merchants, we trained 40 merchants and 60 fishermen in the association. All of the 40 merchants got together. The fishermen went, they got boats, they got motors. They left and they brought a DCP for them. When they got all those things, life started to change for us, because there were more fish on the market for us to sell.
Tim: Are there people who aren’t in the association ? I mean, merchants from around here who are not in the association?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Yes, there are merchants who aren’t involved, because the association can’t take just anybody.
Tim: They can’t take everybody, every kind of person?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Some people might sell fish that their husband brought them.
Natacha: But all of you here are in the association?
Public: Yes.
Tim: There’s a limit…
[I can answer you because those people aren’t in the association [laughter]]
Tim: OK, and you, 16?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): Me, 16, I’m in the association. That means, I might be a merchant, a merchant transports fish to me in Jeremie, and I sell it. Sometimes I make dried fish and I take it to sell in Port-au-Prince. Meaning, it’s in Jeremie that I sell all my fish, and do everything having to do with fish.
Tim: Even dried?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): No, fresh. I sell “green” fish, I sell dried, too.
Tim: OK.
Gana: You mean fresh fish?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): Yes, fresh fish. That means that whatever I have that I don’t sell right away, we put it on ice.
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): That is what I would say. Yes, sometimes the boats come in after dark.
Tim: You put the fish on ice, in a cooler?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): Yes, in a cooler. Then we crush ice and put it on top of the fish, and put it in the cooler.
#15 : Yes, we don’t have anything to process it. Sometimes we salt it.
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): When necessary we buy ice and crush it. It’ll keep.
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): When we don’t have any ice to put on it we salt it. Then we look for a market, Kalen. There is another market where we can sell it.
Tim: Market Ka…
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Kalen.
Tim: What’s it called?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Kalen.
Tim: Kalèn.
Gana: Kalen, where is it?
Tim: Do you go by bus or on foot?
Public: Abricot.
Public: On foot, or motorcycle.
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): We go on foot.
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): Sometimes we take a motorcycle.
Tim: How long does it take to get there on foot?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): It doesn’t take long.
[It takes an hour]
Tim: One hour?
Gana: But it’s still in the section of Abricot?
Public: Yes, Abricot.
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): That’s where we go to market on Mondays.
[Still the second section.]
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Monday’s market, we do it here.
Tim: OK, and you?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): Well, by the time I get up my husband is already fishing.
Tim: 17?
Public: Number 17.
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): Then he brings me fish. I sell the fish. Then I joined the association, and I sell fish. I buy, I dry it, and I go to Jeremie to sell. I buy it fresh and I sell in the market here, or in the market in Kalen. I’m everywhere. When there are no fish I buy coconuts, I buy plantains. I sell in Jeremie. Everything.
Tim: After fish, what’s the most important thing you sell around here?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): I sell rice by the bag…
Public: Rice, yes. Maggie, little things like that. You might buy plantains in bulk and sell retail.
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): As for me, I’m a traveling merchant (madanm sara). I buy coconuts, plantains, and I go sell in Port-au-Prince.
Public: The most profitable thing around here is fish, so, if there are no fish…
Tim: Fish is the most profitable, and after fish?
Gana: OK, so are all of your husbands fishermen?
Public: Yes, my husband’s a fisherman.
Gana: So that means all your husbands fish?
Public: Yes.
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): But we don’t just buy from our husbands. We buy from other people.
Tim: You buy from other people, too?
Public: Yes.
Tim: Who else do you buy from?
Public: Other fishermen who’ve been out fishing. People in the organization sometimes bring fish.
Tim: Even if you don’t know them, like if it’s not your child, your brother, they’ll still sell to you, people other than your husband might sell with you?
Public: Yes, Yes..
Tim: They might sell with you because, if they don’t know you at all, they still might sell to you?
Public: Yes, you have to have the food in your hands, you have to have cash, you have to have money.
Tim: You have to have cash?
Public: Yes, you have to have cash on hand to buy because they won’t sell on credit. If you don’t have cash they won’t sell to you on credit.
Tim: Could a woman come from somewhere else and buy here without any problems, a woman from the countryside, for example?
Public: Yes, they come here to buy from us, when we buy in bulk, lots of fish, they are the ones who come help, they buy from us to go resell in other markets.
Gana: But there’s something I’d like to know. You say it’s around here… where do you find the most fish? Is it around here or is there someplace else you go to buy fish?
Public: We only buy around here. We stay here and here alone. The boats might come from somewhere else. They come here to sell, and we buy.
Gana: But you don’t go other places to buy fish from somewhere else?
Public: No. [Tim clears his throat.]
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): The boats sometimes go to Anse d’Hainault, too. They bring back fish to sell to us.
Gana: Is the fish business very profitable?
Public: Depending on whether the market’s good, and everything. Sometimes they sell it at a high price. Sometimes they sell it for so much you can’t even get your money back.
Gana: Well, say one after the other, because each person has her own experience when she sells fish. I’d like for you each person, one after the other, to say whether fish sales are profitable, for her. Let’s start with No. 16.
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): Yes, selling fish is profitable for me.
Gana: Fish sales have benefits?
10Minutes
Gana: Let’s continue, let’s keep going, one after the other, ladies. No. 5, I’d like for you to answer next.
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Fish sales are profitable when things are good, but there also are times that after you buy you can’t even recover the money you spent. You have to put up your own money, because not every fisherman knows you. You might have to spend your last bit of money to pay him. When you sell, you might make 100 gouds, 200 gouds. You might also make 1000 gouds. But if you can’t sell, you’re stuck with the fish, you can lose money. You have to use your own money to pay the fisherman you don’t know. But if you’re broke and have nothing on you, the fisherman will never wait for you.
Natacha: So when your husband fishes and then brings back the catch, you take a container and go get the fish?
Public: Yes.
Natacha: And then you go to the market to sell the fish?
Public: Yes.
Natacha: But on the days when your husbands don’t catch anything?
Public: We buy from other fishermen. We go and buy from other people.
Natacha: You go and buy from others?
Tim: But you have to have money. Your husbands will give you credit?
Public: Yes, you have to have money, because sometimes the person has come from St. Jis, or Loko, or Dejen. They come from somewhere else and they won’t sell to you on credit. They don’t know you.
Natacha: But you sell all fish?
Public: Absolutely, all kinds.
Tim: OK. Speak up, Gana, let’s move on. You have another question to ask?
Gana: Yes, but I need to know, you do other kinds of commerce. When you sell other things, what business is the most stable, after fish? Because I understand that selling fish is a stable business. You always do it, it’s your livelihood.
Public: Yes.
Gana: But what other business do you have that’s stable, so that you know, even if you’re in the market selling fish you know you have other business?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): I sell rice. I sell sugar.
Gana: Number 5.
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): I sell rice, sugar, cooking oil. Yes, that’s a stable business for me.
Tim: You always sell it?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Yes.
Tim: You sell it behind your house, too?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Yes, l sell from my house, and in the market. At night there’s no fish. That’s my real business.
Tim: OK.
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): When there’s no fish that’s where I make my 50 gouds.
Tim: That’s what you get from it every day?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Yes, every day.
Tim: And you, what’s your number again?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): 21.
Tim: You have another business?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): Yes, I sell gas.
Tim: You sell gas?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): Yes, and rice.
Tim: You always sell gas? If I go to your house now and I need gas, you’ll have some?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): Yes, I have some at home. If you go you’ll find some.
Tim: Rice?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): [laughter, Yes, I have it.]
Tim: And you?
#20 (Abriko, Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade): Me, I sell raw rum.
Tim: What number?
#20 (Abriko, Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade): Number 20.
Tim: Number 20 you buy raw rum (kleren)?
#20 (Abriko, Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade): And milk, a little rum. [Another person coughs] Those times, we buy in Jeremie and come sell here.
Tim: You buy by the gallon?
#20 (Abriko, Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade): Yes.
Tim: And you, what’s your number again?
#31 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 7 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 31, No education): 31.
Tim: 31.
#31 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 7 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 31, No education): Me, what I sell, sometimes I’ll buy fish and it will burn in the sun and it’s useless. I don’t make one goud. And when I don’t make one goud, some people swear at me, call me all kinds of bad things, and I that’s how I live. I hold on, I hold on, I hold on just to live.
Tim: OK, but you don’t have another thing to sell that’s reliable?
#31 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 7 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 31, No education): No.
Tim: OK, and you, 19?
#19 (Abriko, Female, age 31, 2 Children, Fish Trader, No education): Only fish.
#36: Me, I go buy a drum, a little drum of oil. I buy in bulk and I come sell in smaller quantities. I sell retail.
Natacha: In what season do you make the most money selling fish, and in what period do you buy and often find yourself stuck with fish you can’t sell, you waste money, lose money?
Public: When there’s a lot, when there’s not much.
Natacha: In what period is there a lot of fish?
Public: Like right now, in this period, there’s none. If you find fish now you’ll make money from it. In this month (January) it’s cold so there’s not much fish. If fish come in you’ll make a nice little profit. You’ll find in March, in Lent, you won’t get anything.
Tim: OK, let’s finish with 16, you have something else stable to sell other than… ?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): I’m stable when I sell fresh fish. When I can’t get it I sell dried fish.
Tim: That’s your business…
Gana: That means only fish?
Public: Yes, only fish.
Tim: OK, and you, 18?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Me, fish. When I can’t get fish I go buy chickens to sell. I buy carrots. I buy cabbage. When I don’t have anything else and I can’t find fish, I cook food to sell.
Tim: But you say you go buy, that means you go to buy… ?
Public: She goes to Jeremie.
Tim: And you come back with it.
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Yes.
Tim: But then sometimes there’s nothing for you to take?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Yes, when I go I don’t take anything. I just pay the motorcycle fare and go buy so I have something to come back and sell.
Tim: OK, but when there’s fish, when they go to buy they take fish to sell in Jeremie or Port-au-Prince, you always buy something else and bring it back?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Yes, when I’m coming back from Jeremie or Port-au-Prince I buy rice, I buy cabbage, I buy carrots, I buy anything a person can sell so that I can sell it and make more money from the money I’ve made, if I’ve made anything.
Tim: OK, 15.
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Yes, I can’t just stand there with my arms crossed, even if it’s just a bag of charcoal I have to buy something to sell, because when there’s no fish I have to have some way to make money so I can give the children a little bread in the morning.
Tim: You buy charcoal and go off to sell it?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): No, I put it in front of the door. I might sell it for 10 gouds, 15 gouds, or 25 gouds the can.
Tim: OK
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): I put it there because when you get up in the mornings the children are your responsibility. You have to have something. You have to have something to get you through the day.
Tim: OK. 17?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): Ah, me, when I have no fish I go to the market and I buy a bunch of plantains, a bunch of bananas, I separate them into smaller quantities, and sell a hand for 50 gouds or 100 gouds. I sell so I’ll have something to give the children.
15 Minutes
Tim: You buy here?
Public: Yes, in the market.
Tim: OK.
Gana: If I understand you correctly, most of you, after fish, you do other things?
Public: Yes.
Gana: OK, you do other things, but where I see there are a lot of you who go to Jeremie or someplace else to sell. Where, in what zone, do you sell the most?
Public: In the city, in the Jeremie market, in the fish market.
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): I go to the Jeremie wharf and when I don’t sell everything on the wharf I go into the market and sell there.
Gana: What number, what number are you?
Tim: 16.
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): Number 17.
Tim: 17.
Gana: OK, that means, ma’am, that you sell most on the wharf?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): Yes, I mostly sell on the wharf.
Gana: And you, ma’am, 16 ?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): I sell inside the marketplace.
Gana: You mean inside the fish market itself?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): Inside the market.
Gana: So most of you here sell in Jeremie?
Public: Yes.
Tim: Now, when you have money you buy at the lowest price?
Public: Yes, when you have cash you get a better price. When they won’t give me a price I like I turn them down.
Tim: But now, you don’t have money so you take what you can get?
Public: When you don’t have money you’re stuck as you are.
Tim: You get fish from your husband?
Public: Yes.
Tim: But when you have money?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): You buy from anybody you want.
Tim: OK, but when you have no money you can’t buy from everybody?
Public: You can’t do anything but can’t do anything at all but look. You just watch other people do business [Tim laughs] and wring your hands. You can’t say anything, you’re mute. You just watch, you can’t say a word.
Natacha: What advantage do you get from selling fish? What profit do you get out of it?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): You sell fish because there are times when you don’t have 50 gouds to buy anything. You sell so you can come up with something to buy a little something for the children to eat.
Tim: But is fish the best market, is it the best business?
Public: Yes, when there’s fish to be had, compared to other types of commerce.
Gana: What advantage does it have over the other types of commerce you do?
Public: It’s better than all other types of commerce because fish sells the best. It’s a hot item. Everybody needs it, so it sells better than anything else.
Tim: Because it sells… ?
Public: It’s better than all other types of commerce because everybody needs it. They have to eat fish. If you have it, people can’t just go without food. Sometimes you buy a bag of rice you go a month without selling it. As soon as you put down your fish you sell it within a week.
Tim: The same day?
Public: Yes, you’ll sell enough to make 50 gouds. In one day, or 3 or 4, you might sell everything you have.
Tim: OK, let me ask a question. 18, when you arrive in Port-au-Prince with a bag of dried fish, do you sell it all the same day, or do you have to stay?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Yes, other market women come and buy it from me.
Tim: They buy it from you right there?
Public: Yes, they go and sell somewhere else in Port-au-Prince. They go sell in the Jeremie market, there are merchants who specialize in doing just that. They are there to buy from you when you get to Port-au-Prince.
Tim: As soon as you arrive you sell the fish?
Public: Yes, you sell it and then you get down.
Tim: You don’t give credit?
Public: No, sometimes when there aren’t a lot of vendors they might buy on credit, and the food too. Yes, they send you the money. There are merchants for that, when you return and haven’t sold everything if you know the person.
Tim: Gana.
Gana: OK, I don’t have a lot more questions.
Tim: No.
Gana: Between salt fish and fresh fish, which is better to sell?
Public: Fresh fish. There are people who don’t eat salted fish, so it’s not as good for you. When it’s salted it can take time to sell. It sells better if it’s fresh.
Tim: Fresh sells better?
Public: Yes, it sells faster.
Tim: Let’s say, if your husband catches fish and brings them to you, if he sells them to another woman you won’t be mad?
Public: No.
Tim: You let him sell to her?
Public: Yes, he helps me. He’s helping me.
Tim: He helps you but do you take the money or does he… ?
Public: Yes, he takes the money.
Tim: He takes the money?
Public: Yes
Tim: Will he give it to you?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): Yes, he’ll give it to me.
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Yes, he’ll give it to you.
Tim: And if he doesn’t give it to you, then you’ll be mad?
Public: [laughter] If he doesn’t give it all to me he’ll give me some. They give us something, even if they take some of it for themselves. Even if they take part they’ll give us the rest. [laughter].
Tim: Are there women around here who invest, in traps, in nets, in boats?
Public: Yes.
Tim: There are? You know women who have fishing boats?
Public: Yes.
Tim: How many?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): I have canoes, I have nets.
Tim: Oh, and you?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): I have a little canoe.
Tim: A little dugout?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): Yes, a little dugout canoe.
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): I had two skiffs once but lost them both.
Tim : Both were yours?
#21 (Abriko, Female, age 32, 2 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 6th Grade): Both were wrecked across the water.
Tim: And when they caught fish they had to give you a third, a share of the catch?
Public: Yes, you get a quarter of each fish.
Tim : And did you have any?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): I had a little dugout canoe but it got crushed when I tied it to a tree in a storm [laughter].
Tim: OK, when you say you had one, who went fishing in it?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): My husband fished with it.
Tim: And?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): In the little canoe, I had a little dugout canoe and my husband worked in it.
Tim: Do you have these things? Do you have a fishing canoe, nets?
26: I had a boat but not now. I don’t have one any more.
Tim: You don’t have any nets?
26: No, I don’t.
Tim: And you, do you ? Number 5.
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Yes, I had a little canoe, yes.
Tim: You had a canoe?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Yes, I had one. My son uses it.
Tim: But it’s yours?
20 Minutes
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Yes, it’s mine.
Tim: And you, do you have one ? What’s your number again?
#20 (Abriko, Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade): Number 20.
Tim: Do you have a boat?
#20 (Abriko, Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade): No.
Tim: Do you have… are you married?
#20 (Abriko, Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade): Well, I have nets.
Public: My husband has a net.
Tim: Your husband has nets. All of your husbands have nets?
Public: Her husband has nets. All of our husbands have nets.
Tim: And what other questions to you have?
Gana: I think, I was asking where they sell the most. In what markets do they sell the most. Where do they go where they sell the most?
Tim: You do the best in Jeremie.
Public: We sell the most in Jeremie. That’s the city, because I might have one sack of fish or two, I always sell everything I have in Jeremie. Here if you have one bag you can’t sell all of it. Only when fish are scarce can you sell all you have here. If there are lots of fish you won’t sell everything and you’ll have to salt what you have left.
Tim: OK, so let me say, if I 100 dollars (500 gouds) worth and I say I’m going to sell here, I won’t be be able to make any profit. If you buy 100 dollars worth of fish can you make any money?
Public: Yes.
Tim: If you buy 100 dollars worth to sell, how much profit can you make?
Public: You can make 100 gouds, or 150 gouds. Maybe just 50 gouds, depending on the market. You might make nothing at all.
Tim: The same amount of fish, if you take it to sell in Jeremie, how much will you make?
Public: You won’t make anything on 100 dollars. There’s nothing in it for you. You have to factor in the transport expenses, 1000 gouds roundtrip. You have to have a place to stay overnight. I spend two days, sometimes three.
Tim: To sell everything?
Public: Yes, 500 gouds. You might leave Sunday. You pay for the bag of fish separately. You pay 500 gouds. You have to have enough to pay expenses, and still have something as profit.
Natacha: So that is why you all might stay here to sell your fish?
Public: Yes.
Gana: Do you have restaurant clients? Do you know people who run restaurants, where you know when your husband arrives with fish you can sell to them?
Public: No, when you have fish they won’t buy it all. Restaurants are more likely to just want snapper.
Tim: Restaurants?
Public: Yes, red snapper.
Tim: They don’t want white fish?
Public: There are restaurants that take them, Taza. They take snapper, dorad, they also take things like conch. There are other people who say they are hard. Some foreigners come eat them. Snapper are the best, though.
Tim: They don’t want snapper?
Public: They like snapper. We sell them to other market women.
Public: Yes .
Gana: Does anybody go take orders in, say, Port-au-Prince? Go looking for clients?
Public: No.
Tim: The association you were talking about, does it talk about the possibility of clients in Port-au-Prince?
Public: No.
Tim: Do you ever pool what you have to go sell, if you need to have a lot to sell?
Public: Yes, we do.
Tim: You work together?
Public: Three market women, or 4, might go together.
Tim: 3, 4?
Public: Yes.
Gana: Do you go together, or just pay?
Public: No, each one has her own business.
Natacha: When you have fish like that how do you preserve them?
Public: We salt them or dry them in the sun.
Tim: Do you have freezers?
Public: No, we don’t. We put them in the sun, but then they are hard to sell. When they are dried or salted people aren’t as likely to want them. People resist. When your fish are salted you might be stuck with some of them. You lose money, too. But it we had a place where we could put them right away into a freezer, it would be good for us. We could sell them like fresh fish, but salting them isn’t good for us.
Tim: Can you use any fish, no matter how big?
Public: Yes.
Tim: You can salt them all, too?
Public : Yes
Tim: All can be salted?
Public: Yes
Tim: Are there any other questions? Does anybody need to know something else about fish sales, something important or interesting? You say you have nowhere to put the fish, if you had a freezer you would be able to keep the fish, so you could sell them even when sales are bad?
Public: Yes
Tim: When sales are good, OK, is there anything else we should talk about, that we need to know?
Public: Yes, we’d always have fresh fish. Instead of people coming and only finding some salt fish, having to eat salted fish, if we had a place to keep them there would always be fresh fish.
Tim: But is there anything, is there a lack of salt, is there a lack of limes?
Public: No.
25 Minutes
Tim: Is there any other product that could help you sell fish?
Public: The only thing that would help is a freezer, a walk in freezer so we could put them in coolers.
Tim: A freezer?
Public: We need a cold room, a freezer, so we could preserve them. So we could use coolers.
Tim: Do you need more coolers?
Public: Yes, we don’t have any. Market women don’t have them at all.
Tim: When you need them where do you go?
Public: We borrow them from people who have them, if they’ll lend them to us.
Tim: If you have money and want to buy one, you get it in Jeremie?
Public: Yes, if you have money you can buy one in Jeremie, anywhere. Some are expensive, depending on the size. There are 500s, there are expensive coolers, 1500, 2000. 500 is a little one to carry ice. The big 2000 dollar (10000 gouds) is to put a ballyhoo in.
Tim: Ballyhoo.
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): We don’t have enough equipment, either.
Tim: Fishing equipment?
Public: We don’t have enough equipment. When we sell fish it’s with our bare hands. Our little knives are too weak. We don’t have enough basins. When we buy fish we carry them on our heads. Water slops over and gets us all wet [laughter]. We suffer a lot, as women do. If I’m carrying a basin of fish and have to go up the mountain, the basin overflows on my head, fish spill out on my head. I have to return home. When that happens you don’t make any money. You might go to the market crying, burning in the sun. And you wind up having to go home with nothing, discouraged. You can’t buy anything.
Gana: If you had it to do over again, and find something else to sell, what would it be?
Tim: Number 5, what would you do?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): The thing that sells best is food.
Public: Rice, everything. Sandals, clothes, bras. No women are using skin creams, perfume, used clothing, all those things.
Gana: If you could make a change, would you change from selling fish?
Public: Yes, we’d change.
Gana: So, you don’t like the fish business?
Public : We like it but sometimes we don’t have any to sell.
Gana: Listen, I was asking between selling fish and selling something else, what’s better than fish?
Public: We’ll always sell fish. We wouldn’t change that even if there were another type of commerce. We would always hold onto fish even if the fishing boats came back empty, it won’t go away. Even if it’s just throwing out a net to catch a can of sardines.
Gana: No, you can’t all speak at once. Let’s do it by number.
Tim: 15, finish what you were saying?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Yes. I said, the women say they’re ready to sell something else, but I’m saying even if I had some other type of commerce to do I’d never drop selling fish.
Public: I’d never leave it because I know what it has done for me and my five children. I know where to go to sell. Even if I had some other business to do, you know you can make 50 gouds with this, so the children won’t go hungry. Selling fish is no reason not to also do some other business. Look, when there’s no fish, I’ve gone five months without fish, if we had nothing to do how would we live, how would we feed our children? How would we pay for our houses, or school?
Tim: You mean you like fish but don’t always have them?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): We don’t always have fish.
Tim: And 18, what do you have to say?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Well, as the ladies say, there aren’t always fish. Sometimes you go out and you find a little fish. Other people have fish but you don’t. You don’t have anything to sell. If you don’t have some other business, something else to sell, you’re stuck. You have to have some other commerce to go into.
Tim: If they could always get fish is that the only thing they would sell?
Public: No, I might only be able to buy one bag, and a bag of rice. Even if it’s just every once in a while, you have to have something else to sell. If you’re comfortable with charcoal, you put it in front of your door and sell that.
Gana: That means that people who, like you No. 18 who sell fish only, No. 19, No. 8, fish is the only thing you sell. You don’t do any other type of commerce?
#8: I sometimes sell food down there, when the glass eels are running. I go sell food there. I sell food to the people hunting glass eels.
Tim: You sell food?
#8: Yes, cooked food, where there are glass eels. A little thing.…
Tim: Ah, with other people who hold on… ?
#8: Other people have there own thing they do there.
Gana: And you don’t have anything you do?
Public: She says she does. Not me… She says she sells klerin (raw rum). Me, sometimes I cut trees and make charcoal to sell when I can’t get any fish.
Gana: So, if I’m understanding right, that means every one of you has something you do when you can’t get any fish?
Public: Yes
30 Minit
Gana: Because now there were people who said that…
Public: But not with our own money, with borrowed money. I might borrow 500 dollars (2500 gouds) and it changes hands, it passes through our hands…
Tim: 17, do you have goats?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): No, I don’t have any.
Tim: Pigs?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): The hurricane killed them all. I don’t have any more.
Tim: You don’t have a farm?
#17 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 8 Children, Fish Trader, 17, No education): Yes
Public: Yes, we have our little gardens.
Tim: 15, you have a garden?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): I do, but it doesn’t have anything in it yet.
Tim: 15, you have goats?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): No, I had 25 but they died in the storm.
Tim: OK, and you, 18?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Not one survived.
Tim: 18, you don’t even have a garden?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): I have one but I’m just getting it started. My crops were destroyed but I’m getting them replanted.
Tim: What are you planting, mostly?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): I’m putting in yams, plantains, beans, manioc.
Tim: OK, and you, 16, you have a garden?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): I don’t have a garden, no. I had livestock but they died.
Tim: They died, but you had them?
#18 (Abriko, Female, age 40, 5 Children, Fish Trader & Farmer, No education): Here, in Grand’ Anse. The hurricane didn’t leave anything behind for a poor soul like me.
Tim: But do you have a garden now, 5?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Now, I have a little garden that’s just getting started, yes.
Tim: What do you plant, mostly?
#5 (Abriko, Female, age 40, Unkwn Children, Traveling Merchant, 1st Grade): Plantains, bananas.
Tim: You, do you have a garden, Momi?
## : Yes, now I’m growing crops but in the storm all of my fields were destroyed. I’m starting all over.
Tim: Do you have, you have livestock?
##: All my livestock was killed in the storm. I have none left.
Gana: The storm, nearly two years ago, it is a point of reference for all of you, the hurricane. It was nearly two years ago.
Tim: And you, 19, do you have a garden, do you have livestock?
#19 (Abriko, Female, age 31, 2 Children, Fish Trader, No education): I have a little field I’m just starting to plant.
Tim: Now you’re starting, you’re, what number are you again?
#31 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 7 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 31, No education): 31.
Tim: 31, do you have a garden?
#31 (Abriko, Female, age 50, 7 Children, Fish Trader, farmer, 31, No education): I’m just getting started now.
Tim: You’re starting now, and, 20, you have a garden?
#20 (Abriko, Female, age 26, 1 Child, Fish Trader, farmer, 20, 12th Grade): Yes, now.
Tim: Now you have a garden
[The cost of living is so expensive you can’t buy meat. If you don’t have money you can’t live.]
Gana: That means since the hurricane you’ve had time to replant?
Public: Yes.
Gana: It’s just simple little things that give you the limited resources you have?
Public: Yes.
Gana: That’s what I’d say after the storm, because…
Public: Yes, since the storm there’s a little food, we find a little food in the market, even if we don’t get anything from the earth, we find a little something to eat in the market.
Tim: Even what?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): There are times you plant, you plant yams and you get nothing back. The yam you planted [you don’t get anything else]. You replant and replant and they don’t produce anything.
Gana: And, well, ladies, we are happy with the information you’ve provided…
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): We’re happy, too.
Gana: We’ve collected a lot of information, a lot. I don’t know if you have any other questions, Tim?
Tim: Between farming and fishing, what’s more important for you?
Public: They are both important. Both are good. Sometimes, fishing, when you can get fish, you’ll have something to eat. Sometimes, if you have crops in the garden, all you have to do is dig something up.
Gana: Number 16 just said something very important, Tim ?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): Yes, I mean when people plant crops they can harvest six months out of a year, but fishermen harvest from the sea. They might come back with nothing. When that happens, we wind up with nothing, too. When they go out and catch fish every day, we make money too. [We have hope]. What we sell, we can harvest, too.
Tim: You can harvest, you can plant crops?
#16 (Abriko, Female, age 39, 8 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 7th Grade): Yes, you can harvest your crops.
Gana: Chachou, you don’t have information you need… ?
Natacha: I don’t think so, no.
Gana: Tim.
Tim: OK, we’d like to thank you… Yes.
Public: Thanks, thank you very much. Yes.
Gana: We thank you, very much. Yes.
Public: Thank you, too, for all we discussed.
Gana: Thank you for the excellent information you gave us.
Public: We’d like to say thank you, too. Safe travels.
Gana: Thank you very much. After all, the information you’ve provided is very important to us.
Public: Yes
Gana: It has helped us better understand the fish business, you understand?
#15 (Abriko, Female, age 42, 5 Children, Fish Trader& Farmer, 3rd Grade): Yes.
Gana: How market women who sell fish live, it’s truly important for us. We thank you, very much, for that. Thanks. I hope to see you again, to see when there’s activity to see, to see how things are going around here. OK. Thank you, ladies.
Public: Thank you, very much.
Gana: Well, thanks again. We’ll be going…
34 Minutes
END
