Bluefin

BANG!!! None of the village ladies react. They carry on chatting. BANG! I look around. It can’t be fireworks. I am in a remote village without electricity or running water. But I have only been here for a few days, what do I know? In my rudimentary Ilocano I try to ask about what is disturbing this stunning sunset. No one answers. I probe again with different basic vocabulary. Nothing. I give up. I feel like my tongue has stopped working as I grasp for words. My language skills must be a much worse than I thought.

Days go by and I continue to hear the “fireworks”. I ask everyone: the baker with his ten types of rice breads, my host dad while he sprinkles food pellets over his shrimp pond, and the children that are constantly chasing each other around the village. The few villagers that overcome their coyness tell me it is bang bang fishing, but that does not make any sense.

Finally, one afternoon sitting with my neighbor, sipping a cold Coca-Cola to hasten away the ebbing heat, she attempts to explain the “fireworks”. When it is apparent I still do not understand what bang bang fishing is, she takes my hand and leads me from the bamboo house to the beach. We gaze out onto the bay of Hundred Islands National Park from the shade of a thatch roof. She stares at the ocean, so I do the same. She does not say anything and I wish I were still sipping my soda. At least there is a slight breeze, enough so that the sweat has stopped beading on the backs of my legs.

BANG! A mushroom of water shoots 20 feet into the air. I sit there speechless, motionless. She looks at me and I nod. I finally understand what bang bang fishing is. The fishermen, in their small, wooden boat, are dynamite fishing. My Peace Corps assignment said I would be working with fishermen. I realize now some details were omitted from the job description.

Out on the bay, the men are scooping up the lifeless, floating fish as I absorb the last of the tropical sunset. As the sun dips below the horizon and the sky darkens, the reality of the situation begins to sink in. It will be an interesting 2 years.