Fishies fishies everywhere.

Since I’ve been skimping on my blog in the past few months, a lot of people have been asking me, "what the heck are you doing these days?"

Well, though I have a number of small projects in the works (teaching my women’s group how to pay their salaries, another improved cookstove project, soy workshops, raising chickens with my friend Patience, and working with my women's group in an attempt to execute a greenhouse project), my main deal these days is fish.

Fish farming, to be more specific – quite different than tomato and squash farming, as I quickly learned.

It started during my first or second week in Akono.  Madame Manga, my counterpart, brought me to an ADEVAK (Association for the Development of Akono) meeting so that I could introduce myself to people that may be interested in working with a Peace Corps Volunteer.  After the meeting, a man approached me – Monsieur Mfugue, AKA Dr. Cesar Pinkules, AKA Mr. Fish.  (Okay, so only I call him Mr. Fish, and that’s because I didn’t know his name for the first few months).

Anyways, Mr. Fish invited me to his home in Mfida to check out his fish ponds.  He had been working in pisciculture for more than 12 years, but was not seeing results anywhere near the potential.  As he gave me a tour of his six ponds, I could see that he was filled with motivation and a true passion for pisciculture.  Despite his lack of success after 12 years, he was not discouraged and still aimed to improved, explaining to me, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Albert Einstein didn’t become a genius overnight.  There's still hope for us here!"

His passion inspired me, and as we sat and talked more about his experience and my own experience, I was completely honest with him:  “I know absolutely nothing about fish farming.  In fact, I don’t even like to eat fish.  But I see that you are a hard working man and that you have a passion to continue working in this field.”  I explained that despite my utter lack of knowledge, I could call up my program managers, Tiki and Therese, and see if he had any connections to people that could help out my new friend, or at the very least, a document about fish farming.

Well it turns out neither Tiki nor Therese knew anything about fish farming, and thus they directed me to meet with the country director, Mark Orlic.  Mark was a Peace Corps Volunteer who specialized in aquaculture back in the day – if there is anyone who knows fish, it’s this guy.

Mark began giving me some really great advice, which I then relayed back to Mr. Fish.  As more people in Akono began to gain an interest in what I was doing, I began talking more and more about pisciculture, and finding more and more passionate fish farmers.

A fish harvest in Oveng.

All of a sudden, I realized that there are dozens of ponds around here that I had never noticed before!  After a bit of investigation, I learned very few of these fish farmers have had any actual training and, much like Mr. Fish, none of them are producing nearly as much fish as they would like.

So what does this all mean?  Where do I go from here?

Peace Corps is providing me with the wonderful opportunity to travel to Zambia to shadow a few other PCVs in what stands as the last remaining fisheries program in all of Peace Corps worldwide.  Myself and another volunteer, Leana Schwartz, will be spending two weeks learning as much as we can about fish farming – from selecting a site, to digging the pond, to harvesting, to marketing and selling.  We will then bring back what we have learned, and help to train other volunteers, essentially as the “pioneers” of fish farming within PC Cameroon.

Fish ponds in Mbengwi, NW, Cameroon

In preparation for this training in Zambia, I’ve been talking to fish farmers in order to learn as much as I can to get a foundation, and also to learn what the main challenges are for fish farmers here in Akono.  Additionally, I spent a week visiting Leana in Mbengwi, in the North West region, so that we could team up and visit government fish stations to analyze their current activities and to get a basic understanding of some of the techniques.  That way we can know what sorts of things to look out for in Zambia. Hopefully the end result will not just be increased productivity in ponds around Akono, but new ponds in many villages across Cameroon under Peace Corps’s tutelage!

So hats off to Mr. Fish for getting this ball rolling on!  Here’s hoping that great things come out of Zambia!  Catch up with y’all in a few weeks!  

Catching fish with the Mfugue fmaily