By Lucy Fondo (Kenya)
A Kenyan winter is a Danish summer. This early morning in Hirsthals is cold and rainy day and we are going to a fish auction on the harbour. Due to the weather the amount of fish today are not overwhelming but the technology is devastating compared to what Kenyan fishermen are experiencing.
In Kenya the fishermen are not as well organised and controlled as in Denmark. Normally every fishermen fish for himself and sometimes fishermen end up being arrested by the neighbouring country’s navy for fishing and trespassing international borders. This happens because of the competition of catching more fish.
Danish fishermen has also experienced competitions and some have also tried to fish outside the permitted territory but the strict control of the fishing makes it very difficult to come around the authorities and not being caught with illegal fish. The fish are counted and the prices are regulated and governed by the public market price.
In Kenya price control is foreign to many fishermen and the market is based on “first-come-first-service”- basis. No standard number of fish per day is registered and recorded and it is based on presumptions most of the time. As the day goes by they lower the prices, because of the poor preservation methods making the fish go bad.
At the auction in Hirtshals we experienced less than 5 degrees and my legs still feels sore from the cold. If this cold is a pre-experience on Danish winter I imagine that I could end up like the dead and frozen fish on ice easily during the coldest months in Denmark.