This morning, we stopped to see a fishing village in Togo while on our way to Benin. They fish here six days a week and take Wednesday's off. We were told that different fisherman fish in different ways. Some go out, throw their fish nets and catch their fish, and come back in. Others go out, set their nets, and then go retrieve them the next morning. Still others stay out even longer to fish.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that the only currency is "fish." Everyone that works here gets paid in fish. No currency is involved in this fishing village. If you need some money, then you must sell some of your fish.

I'll start our visit with a fishing boat coming into shore. These boats are handmade and are monsters. They use big timbers to make the boats and the boats must weigh a ton. To land a boat and get it up on the shore takes something like twelve to eighteen determined guys. In the first photo below, you can see two boats coming ashore. You might notice sleds and rollers under the nearest boat, which are laid down starting at the beach. There is a long rope attached to the front of the boat and in the second photo, you will see that there were maybe twelve to sixteen guys pulling on the boat to get it up on the beach. They were all working hard.

Once the boats were landed on the beach, the activity became magnified. Most of the work involved the nets, both taking out the fish and re-wrapping the nets.

In the next two photos, you will see a couple taking the fish out of the net, followed by two others re-folding the same net.

Most of these fish were sardinellas and petite fritures, I believe. Most of the fish that we saw coming in were very small fish.

We were told that they do catch some larger fish on the boats that go further out into the ocean and that stay out fishing for a longer time.

In the photo below, you can see a new fishing boat being built on the right side. They use heavy timbers and work right there on the beach to construct it.

I took a follow-up photo of the above for the net gatherers. We were told that refolding the nets was a key job. You might also notice that the woman is carrying her baby behind her back. This was common everywhere in West Africa. Babies were lugged everywhere the mom went. I never heard one cry out of a single baby.

It was obvious that no one was going to steal a boat. The boats weighed a ton. The motor on the boat, however, was a different story. Motors were taken home.

Fish were being dried in many places on the beach. Some groups of fish were small and others were very large as you will see below.