Take me to your fishers!

At a relatively calm point in this whirlwind, 6-week work & play tour of Southeast Asia – toward the end of an 11-day visit to the small coastal city of Bago on Negros Occidental, Philippines, before heading back to Thailand later this week.  I’m here to conduct interviews of fishers along to coast of Bago and neighboring Pulupandan as part of my dissertation, asking them about their fishing livelihood, knowledge of and interactions with Irrawaddy dolphins (called lumbalumba here), and perceptions about conservation, all neatly (more or less) packaged in a 30-minute questionnaire. (see previous post for some context).

Bago City market

Fortunately, I have two lovely field assistants (and they also seem to enjoy being bodyguards, as well) who are navigating me through the decidedly non-Tagalog local language (Ilonggo) in my quest for these interviews and vegetarian food.

"No killer highway"... during a calm spell

We’ve been taking whatever means of transportation most easily presents itself (rattly trikes, loudly colorful jeepneys, clunky buses) to the part of the highway closest to our selected fishing villages.  I love these rides – time to sit back and think and let the sights and sounds of the passing landscape gently flit into my brain.  A farmer working in a rice field.  A huge set of speakers set, inexplicably, in the middle of an empty field. Stands of fruit and vegetables.  Students walking to school.  A wide assortment of vehicles constantly honking, driving recklessly…(“No killer highway. Only reckless driver,” warns a billboard.  I try not to think about it too much).

When we descend from our chariot, we wander around until we find bystanders to help us find the local barangay hall or the nearest fishing village.  We sometimes visit the barangay halls (here, the fishing villages are sections within larger 'villages' called barangay) to get what information exists on the local fisheries (it's very common to hear, "You'll find the poorest of the poor in these villages.  This barangay is poor, but the fishing villages are even poorer").


When we're looking for the fishing villages, my jaunty assistants ask, "Where’s the nearest fishing village? We’re looking for fishermen to interview.  Do you know where they are?”  People are happy to point out the way, or even sometimes guide us personally until we find our first interviewee.  We walk along dirt roads through open fields, under palm trees, between bamboo fences, arriving at clusters of small houses made of nipa and bamboo, walking by people going about their daily lives - getting water from the pump, repairing fishing nets, playing bingo or mah jong or card games, lounging in the shade, fixing boats and houses.  The mood is always tranquil, especially when compared to the bustling highway and the center market of Bago.  People look at the two unfamiliar young men and the foreigner they’re escorting, but never stare rudely.  Children tend to be awestruck, shy, or almost cheekily friendly ("Take our picture!!!").  My field assistants start asking around for interviewees, with confidence and friendliness tempered by politeness.

It’s amazing, verging on ridiculous, that we waltz into these villages, walk up to complete strangers who have never seen us before and who have no idea what we’re doing, and say, “Hi! We’re doing research on fishers and dolphins.  Can we interview you?”, and they agree, usually with no questions or reluctance.  Even though a 30-minute interview is relatively short for this type of research, it’s still a lot of time for someone to willingly give to a few strangers.  I have very mixed (mostly negative) feelings about paying people for interviews, and bringing beer or cigarettes is rife with potential problems (e.g., I refuse to contribute to lung cancer through my research), but I feel that I really should show my appreciation for their time after the interview is through.  I’ll have to figure it out before I return later this year.   Research involving fisher interviews often involves a group of researchers dashing through a village, pestering fishers for their time, and never returning to even explain what those interviews contribute to.  I don’t want to be one of those people who just mines the fishers for their information and leaves.

We conduct the interviews on the beach, in homes, outside of sari-sari stores, on piles of nets, wherever.  Sometimes family members gather around, with the smaller children staring wide-eyed at me.  Curious crowds occasionally grow around the interviews.  Sometimes we interview fishers as they repair their nets, cutting and sewing and tying knots so quickly that I can't follow their progress as their hands busily buzz around the delicate nylon mesh...and all the while, they converse naturally.  I know if I tried to do that, I'd end up tangled in the net....Tara bycatch.

Now that I trust that my assistants understand the questions well and know how to conduct the interviews, we split into two teams; I sit in on the interviews, alternating which assistant I join to make sure that consistency between the two is maintained.  Though I don't speak Ilonggo (I'll admit, I drastically underestimated how different it is from Tagalog), I follow the interviews closely by watching the fishers as they respond and looking at the responses that my assistants write down.  If something seems odd, I'll interrupt and ask for clarification, or think of follow-up questions to ask.  If a fisher gives a very long-winded response to what should have been a simple yes-or-no question, I'll ask for a translation of the response and ask follow-up questions based on that.  I'm constantly writing my own notes in the notebook.

When you think about this research in an abstract way, fishers are your sources of data.  Each fisher is another sample.  But, of course, they are people, with aspirations and disappointments and dreams and regrets just like anyone else, living very tough lives.  And that makes questions like, “If you had the opportunity, what kind of job would you like?” and “Do you want your children to be fishers?” potentially intrusive.  I’ve heard a lot of fishers laugh about that first question: “I’d be President!”.  I’ve heard some say, “Fishing’s fine by me.”   But I’ve also heard some fishers wistfully say that they’d like some other jobs, but only know how to fish.   Similarly, most fishers say that they don’t want their children to fish: “I don’t want them to experience this life.  It’s very hard and dangerous.  It’s not fulfilling.  I want them to finish their education and live fruitful lives.”

I hate to make them reflect on their livelihood with regret.  One of the things that always profoundly affects me is the regret that people feel for dreams that never came true, talents that never had an opportunity for use, hopes for a life vastly different from reality.  I’ve already cut out several questions that are often used in interviews, deeming them too personal to be worth the data I would get.  I’ve left those two questions in because I am genuinely and deeply interested in what the answers are.

Part of the commute

It's fascinating to see how different the responses to some of the questions are, between villages and even between fishers in the same village, fishing in the same locations.  Some say they've never seen the dolphins; others say they see them regularly.  Some are quick to blame a local alcohol factory's pollution for the decrease in fish catch over the years (this decrease is probably one of the most consistent trends reported), while others dismiss pollution as a threat and say that illegal fishing is the main problem...and still others say, "Illegal fishing here? Not a problem - the bantay dagat (sea police) enforce the regulations."  Interviews can be frustrating in that way - it forces you to assess how much you trust your respondent.  Are they being willfully misleading?  Are they convinced that they are correct even when their memory is incomplete or biased?  Do they fully understand the questions?  But, for studying these small-scale fisheries, interviews are a practical and valuable tool, provided you recognize the caveats of the method and constantly assess the quality of the data.

It's particularly interesting to come in as an outsider and witness different views of contentious issues, where I have no real context on which to base my own opinion.  For example, an alcohol factory was recently shut down in one of the cities where I'm working, putting many people out of work.  When I was here last year with Team Lumbalumba, we heard tales of the political motivations behind the closing and the hardships that the now out-of-work factory employees had to deal with.  And then we heard the other side of the story: the factory had been polluting the local waters, as demonstrated to us by photos of a nasty-looking black plume of effluent along the coast.  Fishers had complained about the impact on their livelihood, and the environmentally-minded mayor made a decision for the good of the local marine ecosystems.  On each side of this issue are people who earnestly believe that their slant on the story is true.  It's definitely a good exercise in keeping an open mind.

Conducting these interviews is a good lesson in communication, too.  Again, when I’m sitting in my office, thinking in abstract terms about what kind of data I want to collect, I throw around terms like “overfishing” and “profitability” and “sustainability”.  When I get to the field and have my field assistants translate those terms into a different language and explain them to fishers (who – suprisingly! – don’t use the same terminology that marine ecology and conservation academics do), I appreciate the value of knowing exactly what I mean by the words that I say.  It’s fascinating how concepts can be misinterpreted, and I find myself more bemused than frustrated.  It also helps that my field assistants are very bright and learn quickly.

On a related note, it’s very hard sometimes to not feel like a complete egghead, with my clipboards and notebook, asking swarthy, “old salt” fishers – people of action, people of the sea! – questions as part of my 20^th year of school.

I’ll definitely have to work on handling the smell of drying fish and shrimp, though…I’ve always been very sensitive to the smell of seafood (it's a very visceral reaction - I can't help it), and I struggled to maintain a pleasant demeanor during an interview that was just downwind of salted shrimp drying in the sun.  I’m a marine biologist who gets seasick, and a vegetarian who doesn’t like salad, conducting research in fishing villages even though I hate the smell of fish and shrimp.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me...

I've mentioned this from my entries about Malampaya Sound last year, and the same holds true here: even though these villages are poor and their inhabitants lead tough lives, the people are so warm and lovely.  I've found that people wherever I've traveled are amazing and friendly, but I'd say that people in the Philippines are the happiest, most joyful people I've come across, and the easy smiles and laughter can still be found shining through the poverty of the fishing villages (and the monotony of 30 minutes of interview questions).