Today is a little
slower than most. It's nearly 10 a.m. and the sun still hasn't poked through
the hazy sky. The chilly offshore breeze in Porto Alegre massages the river
and sways the boats anchored nearby. Traffic on land and on river is both
light and dawdling.
The day is relaxed
and without worries, just how Osmar Lisboa da Silva likes it. As the sunlight
starts to kiss the starboard side of Osmar's boat the Xispita, the
captain and his crew prepare to set sail. Just before leaving the port, Captain
Osmar gives one last piece of advice:
"We don't need
to hurry," Captain Osmar says in his raspy voice. "This day doesn't
need any hurry."
When the sun's rays
inch closer to the flapping green and yellow Brazilian flag positioned at
the middle of the boat, Captain Osmar signals for his crew to start the motor.
This captain doesn't fit the stereotype of a traditional captain. He doesn't
command a fleet of dozens of ships nor does his boat merit any notoriety.
His crew consists of him and his son, and the Xispita is a 30-foot
dilapidated craft built by his own hands. They come from humble origins and
are expected to have just as humble endings.
This Tuesday is
the same as any other day for Osmar. He wakes at 5 a.m., pulls on his black
rubber boots and walks across the dirt road to the Guaíba River to
drink his morning coffee on his boat. As he spots his 30-year-old son Leandro
walking to the river, Osmar slips on his brown wool blazer.
"Time to go
to work," he says.
Osmar is a fisherman
by necessity and by choice. His living is the river and its piava and
dourado fish, two popular fish in Brazil. Whatever he catches and whatever
he sells becomes his profit. His education is limited to the second grade,
slashing his choices of occupation. He watched his grandfather make a living
as a fisherman and became his own father's crew when he was younger.
Osmar, the eldest
of 14 children, became his father's prodigy. His rough, dark hands have been
molded to catch and slice fish. His piercing blue eyes have been trained to
spot all types of fish, no matter what season. He knows no other way to live.
Without the river or fish, Osmar would have no life.
It's easy to imagine
Osmar being a childhood friend waiting at the neighborhood playground. His
nonstop dizzying motion and mischievous smile give every hint that a 10-year-old
inside of him is waiting for a game of tag. His eyes, whose dark pupils seem
to swallow his icy blue eyes, get big and his hands flail when he tells a
story. Today he can barely contain his excitement in his lean 5-foot frame
when telling his latest fishing adventure.
But the hard wrinkles
that indent the corners of his eyes and apples of his cheeks, and the continuous
wisdom of his rough, meticulous hands tell us that the 10-year-old has left
Osmar many years ago. The dark patches of skin that dot Osmar's arms and face
and the seemingly endless tales of life on the river spur questions of not
only how old he is, but how much longer he will live. The 67-year-old face
that looks at the river has no apparent worries. He just wants to fish.
Osmar lives life
the way many of the people on Ilha da Pintada live it—painstakingly modest
and poor, at best. He is one of the handful of pescadores on his island,
people for whom fishing is more than just a living. It is living by fishing.
On the small island
of Ilha da Pintada, or Painted Island, the pescadores and their neighbors
live in tiny, shed-like houses where two and sometimes three families live
together. Their poor living conditions permeate through most of the island.
The unpaved roads that surround the island dirty the residents' bare feet
and the seemingly infinite number of undomesticated dogs and chickens keep
the city noisy.
Ilha da Pintada
draws its name from the legend of a local woman enticing men onto the island
with her heavy bright red lipstick. It is far from the beachy postcards and
cosmopolitan cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro most foreigners
see. Pescadores make no more than the equivalent of US$ 200 a month
to support their families. Most have no car, no home phone and no luxuries.
Osmar is still surprised to see a car driving on his street.
Today Osmar is wearing
layered clothing to combat the brisk morning chill. The first layer is a faded
blue T-shirt topped by a rusty brown thin, short-sleeved sweater with cream
stripes. The sweater looks well-worn with the threads on the back at the brink
of ripping. Over the sweater Osmar wears his coffee-colored plaid wool blazer
that extend past knees.
His pants are loose,
blue cotton trousers too big and too long for his compact body. He missed
a loop pulling his black belt through the back of his trousers. That has the
belt completely off track, sliding up and down his waist as Osmar bends over
the down to wipe off the water that occasionally splashes onto his boot.
Osmar's destination
is Lagoa dos Patos on the Guaíba River, a half-hour boat trip from
his house. He left four or five nets cast yesterday and wants to pull them
from the water today. On the surface, it looks as though Osmar's work could
be done by anyone, neither too arduous or difficult. He just cast nets over
the river one day, pulls them out of the water the next day and descales the
fish he caught. But the surface description cannot account for the permanently
engraved, deep wrinkles of his face.
With Leandro in
the cabin steering the boat, Osmar stands on the front deck, scanning the
river for the markers he placed yesterday. The water has become a little more
unstable and choppy, but Osmar's balance is unfazed. He stands straight up,
not bothered by the tumble of the water.
With his right hand
halfway inside the front pocket of his blazer, he points ahead with his left
hand.
"There!,"
he yells back to Leandro, still pointing ahead. "There's the marker!"
The marker, an empty
liter Coke bottle about 100 yards away, bobs its red cap above the water and
Leandro heads straight for it. As they near the marker, Osmar spots a fellow
pescador in his boat pulling a bulky net onto the boat. Osmar waves
at the man, smiles and gives him a thumbs-up sign.
"I know him,"
Osmar says, still smiling. "There are some bad fishermen on this island
and he's not one of them."
Fishing always involves
competition, especially for the pescadores who depend on it. If Osmar
cannot haul in a catch, someone else will. Osmar's 5 a.m. rise is not merely
one that he is accustomed to, it is one that he must live by. The earlier
he wakes, the greater his chances are of beating his competitors to the fish.
Some pescadores
go so far as cutting others' nets to sabotage their catch, Osmar says. He
turns around and points to his left at Damião, another local pescador
who cut almost all of Osmar's nets five years ago.
"People are
jealous of me, but I don't know why," Osmar confesses, dumbfounded. "I
never thought of doing anything bad to somebody. If I would, I would be robbed."
As Leandro pulls
within 10 yards of the marker, his father climbs out of the Xispita
and into the attached canoe. Leandro, still inside the boat, turns off the
motor and looks around the main compartment for any necessary supplies. He
silently checks the back corner, where the sea-blue metal walls wear the decorations
of rust and chipped paint. He then scans the space above the steer. Nothing
is there but a small silver pendant of the Virgin Mary that overlooks every
turn the driver makes.
Next, Leandro checks
the boat's other compartment. He picks up the jackets and sweaters that could
only fit Osmar's small frame and looks underneath the two benches it was thrown
on. The benches, which run alongside the sea-blue walls of the compartment,
hit up against the red lifesaver pinned to the back wall. Leandro makes one
last check below the lifesaver which has "Xispita" and "POA,"
the abbreviation of Porto Alegre, written across it in yellow.
The crew brought
everything, Leandro reports.
"Barco lindo,"
Osmar whispers, a comment on the beauty of his boat as he watches his son
step from it into the canoe.
The canoe, large
enough to be Osmar's work space but not roomy enough to hold more than three
people, is the means that the two-man crew uses to get to the markers and
nets. Osmar takes the helm with Leandro sitting behind him and grabs the two
long wooden oars to begin rowing. His stature is straight, with one foot in
front of the other. His back foot holds him steady as he pushes his entire
weight forward to accelerate the canoe.
His small 5-foot
frame seems to find an unknown source to power the steady pace of the canoe.
With each thrust of his body and arms, Osmar heaves the canoe closer to the
markers. His lips begin to tighten and his brow crinkles with every push of
his arms and every effort of his legs. Each time he pushes the oars forward,
he exhales. Each time he retracts the oars, he inhales. The rhythm is constant
until he reaches the markers.
"I'm 67, but
I am still strong," Osmar boasts, pointing at his bicep.
Once they get to
their first marker, Leandro drops a miniature steel anchor into the water.
As his son lowers the anchor, Osmar begins to pull the nearly 50-foot long
nylon net attached to the marker out of the water. The net does not seem to
have an end. Osmar and eventually Leandro keep pulling the net into the canoe,
hoping to spot a fish on the way.
Finally, Osmar hauls
in a foot-long piIava fish hooked onto the net. With his right hand still
holding onto the net, Osmar casually unhooks the piava's teeth from
the net with his left hand and tosses it into the bin next to his feet. When
he finishes, he continues to pull up the net again.
Both men work in
joint silence. Osmar has his side of the net and Leandro has his. The two
work knowing each other's moves. Leandro hardly needs to look up at Osmar
to see his father's progress. Both concentrate on their own hands and their
own side. The only time Osmar speaks is to talk to the fish. He sees the fish
twist and jump once it lands inside the bin, gasping for the water. After
a few more twists and jumps, it pops outside of the bin onto the canoe floor.
"Pare, pare,"
Osmar says to the fish, calmly asking it to stop moving.
He picks up one
fish and examines its mouth like a child examining the bottom of a turtle.
"This one has
teeth like a child," he jokes.
This net is successful.
They hauled in 10 piava fish with their first net and are about to
move on to their next. They carefully lower the net back into the river again,
marking its placement with the same empty Coke bottle to find tomorrow.
After they finish
clearing their nets, it's time to prepare the fish for sale. Still in the
canoe, both men scale and gut the fish. Osmar uses the dull side of his knife,
waving it back and forth to rip the scales from the fish's flesh. On the opposite
side of the canoe, Leandro is doing the same. Loose scales fly all over the
canoe. Osmar's hands are so plastered in the white scales that they appear
to be covered by gloves. The canoe floor looks like the autumn ground covered
by fallen dogwood petals. Pretty soon, the entire canoe floor has a sheet
of scales covering it.
As he slices a bulky
fish, he looks up at his son, holds the fish in the air and exclaims, "That's
one fat fish!"
This Tuesday is
no different than any other day. They all start and end the same.
"For me, there
is no Sunday, no anything," he explains.
His low-wage job
is one that Osmar would never choose for his children. He never wanted his
two eldest daughters or even Leandro to make a living being a pescador.
"I can live
on this salary," he declares. "But it's hard for others to."
The best memories
Osmar has on the water are not his own. Instead, his best memories are of
his two daughters fishing with him when they were younger.
"The feeling
that I have remembering those times is indescribable," he laments. "I
remember those times with my daughters and I didn't have a camera to photograph
these moments with my family."
"I don't remember
somethings, like names and birthdays, but I will never forget anything about
the river and fishing."
The day is never
long enough for Osmar and the rest of the pescadores of Ilha da Pintada.
The fish they catch for the day are never quite adequate, their need for time
on the water never fully satisfied. Life is not picturesque for Osmar, nor
can he expect it to get any better. The only thing he and the other pescadores
can do before they go to bed is pray for God to watch over them and a good
day of fishing tomorrow.
Nila Do recently
traveled to the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre for a journalism
research project focusing on fishermen who fish for a living. This article
attempts to translate the culture to the page. You can contact the author
at brekdwn@yahoo.com
