Night Fishing or: How To Get A Bad Night’s Sleep While Fishing

The fishermen, and the boats

We began the night by ordering dinner, dinner that was to be eaten in some four hours’ time. As part of dinner, we ordered a bowl of little sardine-like fishes, called sambasa. These fish, hardly a bite each, were the goal of the night. After ordering, but not eating, dinner, we set off on foot down the dirt path out of the hotel, onto a paved road, around a bend, and, after hardly any time at all, to the shore of Lake Kivu, where our guide was waiting.

‘The Best Boat In Africa’

We got into the boat, the pilot turned it on, and we began to bump across the water, heading out to where the night fishermen were already underway. We quickly began to see these funny looking triads of boats floating around the lake. They looked like long canoes, each with an enormous boom stretching out across the water in front of and behind them. They were lashed together using rough-hewn logs, the purpose of which would soon be revealed. These enormous contraptions were rowed far into the lake by a mere four men on either side, pushing to the place they had picked to fish. Some teams were already in place when we passed, and some were still softly floating forward.

We eventually reached a set of these boats, still urging toward its destination, and we fumbled onto the left and middle boats, Mom and Joe taking the middle, where little rowing was happening, and me and Dad getting onto the leftmost canoe, where Dad was urged to pull his weight, quite literally. I too, was eventually forced to take my turn, and I regret to say that neither I nor Dad was able to keep pace or row as hard as the fishermen. We eventually got where we thought we were going, only to discover that there was already someone there, and that we had to continue on. Finally arriving at the next, and further, destination, the action began.

Dad pulling his weight.

Everyone knew what to do, except us. On the rightmost boat they began to unfurl the grand net, passing it under the middle boat and along ropes to our boat. The net was then bunched up underwater below the vessels, and the fishermen began to slide the gargantuan logs away from the middle, widening the gap from boat to boat, and stretching the net to its extent beneath us. Our pilot ferried us to the middle boat, where we would be able to enjoy the action better. When the net was about thirty feet deep, barely a fiftieth of the total depth of the lake, one of the people in the middle boat, whom Mom referred to as The Illuminator, began to light the lamps. These lamps were to be the lure for the fish, which would then be scooped up by the net when there were enough fish. That however, took time.

The full extension of the boats. You can see the connecting logs on the right.

The crew and the lamps

The Illuminator

After waiting almost two hours, during which not much of import happened, the captain of the expedition shouted himself hoarse in waking the sleeping fishermen of the outer boats. It was time to reel the nets in.

Just waiting

Someone situated themselves at a boom for every boat, Dad bravely taking the one next to him. The ropes attached to the nets were attached to the boom's end, allowing them to be hauled in in sequence. The leftmost boat's boom would bend, indicating it was Dad's turn to pull, which cued the rightmost boom to bend. Opposite us, on the other end of the boat convoy, the same was happening. Dad quickly discovered that he was going too fast, and he relinquished his post to the person who was already aiding him. As the straining endeavor went on, there was no sign of the net. Finally, the Illuminator caught my attention and pointed, showing me the corner of the net rising out of the water on the left side. The net continued to rise, at last coming out of the water all the way around the edges, at which point they began to pull on the net directly, taking the part nearest a border and, after giving it a shake to remove the fish, folded it over the border. The meager amount of fish were then collected from the net to be placed in plastic buckets, some of which had been literally sewn up. And that concluded our entire fishing career.

The catch

We came back, hungry and tired, and waited for our food some more. Although we were very hungry, nobody was surprised by the wait. Dinner in Rwanda takes time. When it finally came, the sambaza was in a steaming bowl of soup, and all we could do was enjoy the food.

Winner dinner