Fishermen of Glefe

Glefe, where we have one of our seven branches, is not a very well known area of the city. It indeed lies in the South-Western corner of Accra, locked in between a lagoon and the ocean. There is only one access for cars: a narrow road across the lagoon.
This sandy land, slowly eaten up by the violent waves of the Gulf of Guinea, has been occupied by different communities for the past 15 to 20 years and quite naturally, fishermen communities initially settled there.
Nowadays, fishes have rather left the immediate vicinity of the urban seashore and most fishermen have gone to further locations. But a few boats still carry on some fishing activity from the beach.
The fishing technique consists in dropping the very long net off the shore with the boat. The team of 20+ men handles from the beach the net and follows the drift of the heavy equipment sometimes over several hundreds of meters, starting from Pambros beach to Dansoman beach, some 2 km further. Once the net is expected to be containing a good catch, it is closed and brought on the land.
Women carrying empty dishes follow the team of fishermen from a distance and once the net is brought on shore, they come to purchase the fish right from the net. These women are among the beneficiaries of ID-Ghana.
Already once today have the fishermen launched their net to bring it almost empty. The second catch we attended to was also meager and it is almost another GH¢ 10 burnt in the form of fuel that fishermen would have to bear. Rather too often, these sea worker have to borrow money from the women whom they pay back with the fishes they catch later on. Fishermen launch the net up to three times a day. Today each of them won't make more than a couple of Ghana cedi each...

GH¢ 1 = € 1.7