Atlantic Shore gifts

Yesterday I drove Camille to her friends house for a play date. As we pulled up to the house, there was an old dilapidated truck parked in front and a friend was standing outside with her cook and housekeeper. A large woman with a big gap between her teeth was seated in a folding chair in front of the vehicle. Two large plastic barrels were out with a weight scale sitting on top of one of them. I tried to follow the language but couldn’t. My friend was asking her housekeeper to interpret for her cook. They took the top off of one of the barrels and it was filled with shrimp on ice! She weighed out the remaining shrimp which came to 5 kilo. My friend claimed 3 and I nabbed the remaining 2 (at 4,000 CFA a kilo which is $8 for 2.2 pounds).

The next barrel also contained shrimp, but JUMBO! These looked like small lobster. We split a kilo (~1.1 pounds) at $5 each. I thought the deal was over and couldn’t wait to race home and show Dina and Leopold. The transaction took about a half hour with negotiating on price and chit chatting. It turns out whenever she has a large catch, she drives up from Benin. If you saw the vehicle, you wouldn’t believe it made it all the way from Benin. No telling how often or when she will come back again. She wrote my phone number into her black book but every page had phone numbers written so it’s impossible to say whether she’ll call or not.

I was just about to leave when she asked if I liked fish. I’m a Pisces for goodness sake! I’ve got 1/4 Latvian blood in me, 1/4 Greek, Russian, and my mother was born in China! I have no choice but to love fish. She pulled out a 4 pound bright orange snapper from the back of the truck, all clear-eyed with clean gills and scales, fresh as ripe strawberries from the morning pick! Oh mama! I could’ve kissed that woman (I didn’t).

I was enthusiastic when I got home. Leopold came over to discuss the weekly menu and I pulled out my treasure, one by one, from the refrigerator. His eyes lit up. He cleaned the fish for me and we separated the shrimp into 1/2 pound baggies so that some could be frozen. The big ones he grilled on a low charcoal fire. Sadly, I was the only one who loved them. “Too strong tasting,” was the general consensus. But not for this son-of-a-son-of-a-son-of-a sponge diver!