Sadly there are NOT plenty more fish in the sea thanks to overfishing, illicit practices, and climate change, among other things. But just go with it, read on and you’ll see that in some ways it is an apt cliche to introduce this woman, Madame Diouf, known to her friends as Yayi, who I was fortunate enough to meet yesterday. She is a beautiful soul, a feminist, a natural storyteller, whose personal tragedy propelled her to take action.

Fifteen years ago, her 27-year-old son went to sea with 47 other young men from his community for a long-haul fishing trip. Their catch was inadequate, and to return home with empty nets would have been shameful. They decided to continue to Europe and try their luck as illegal immigrants. However none of them were ever heard from again. Their boat was found adrift, empty.

In Yayi’s metro-Dakar neighborhood, sons who had successfully migrated and could send remittances back to their families in Senegal raised the prestige of their families as well as their quality of life. Which is why it seemed worth the risk to these 48 fishermen.

By the same token that a son’s success as fishermen with big catches or as illegal immigrants reflects well on their families, shockingly, the loss of these 48 young men at sea was not seen as an unfortunate and tragic accident, but as something that discredits and dishonors their families.

The community stigmatized the grieving mothers of these young men. Yayi was having none of it. She used her voice to sway the community’s opinion, and then to try to find options for local families to find livelihood opportunities to try to reduce the pressure on young men to take desperate measures to find income for their family, and to prevent them from taking the fatal gamble her son had taken.

This remarkable woman intuitively understood, in spite of all cultural markers and societal norms that would have insisted otherwise, that this stigmatization was unjust and that she needed to stand up for herself and the other mothers and wives who lost fishermen on her son’s ill-fated pirogue.

Yayi began a series of appeals to influential figures in her community, and secured the patronage of an influential elder through his third and favorite wife to ultimately secure a license begin fishing, taboo and theretofore unprecedented for women. She established a training center to teach other women and men skills to fish, began mussel aquaculture, and related petites entreprises. The training center is on hiatus due to COVID and lack of sustainable funding, but members are still fishing and farming mussels and other ancillary microenterprises, like canning and selling preserves on the domestic market. They are still 375 members that are in a solidarity fund, saving and providing microcredit within their group to fund their ongoing small business activities.

Yayi understands that fish stocks are under pressure due to a variety of factors, but she remains optimistic that the sea can continue to provide income opportunities to keep men from considering the last resort of heeding the siren’s call of migration to Europe. And to hedge their bets, she’s encouraging and supporting other small business opportunities through the solidarity fund she’s kept going. Because of her, for people in Thiaroye-sur-mer there are more fish in the sea for the time being.

You can read more about her in this recent NYT article.

Today’s topic and the cliché in the title is linked to the oppressive pandemic that recently celebrated its one-year anniversary of subjugation over us all. Just when we thought we couldn’t take it anymore, the vaccines are on the scene. It’s amazing how quickly these vaccines have been developed and distributed, they’ve even made it to Senegal in enough numbers that I was able to get the first shot of Astra Zeneca 11 days ago. Enough time has elapsed that I theoretically have some pretty significant immunity (upwards of 70%), and I’m almost out of the danger zone of 15 days when those whose poor souls whos platelets allegedly get overstimulated by the Astra Zeneca vaccine have had clots/strokes.

Is this very rare but potentially lethal side effect of the AZ shot alarming? Of course. But I’m more worried about COVID than I am about blood clots. Better safe than sorry is my answer to the people who dumbfound me, including many Senegalese, who have vaccine hesitancy.

Dakar has been a great place to be during COVID, all things considered. The weather and infrastructure are such that a lot can be done outdoors, open air, and I’ve been able to socialize at beachside restaurants most weekends, although there was a curfew from 9 PM – 5 AM so that most places closed by 7 PM to give their staff time to get home. The curfew was (not coincidentally) lifted just after the recent round of violent protests against the President’s intimidation of opposition leaders. We had a couple weeks of security lockdowns on top of the COVID curfew. I was so inured to security lockdowns after 2018-19 in Haiti that I barely noticed the woefully underwhelming armageddon doomsday prepping I’d done here so far. I have subsequently added to the potable water supply stockpile (6 weeks’ worth). Almost ran out of beer, but still had plenty of booze. Some of my priorities are in order.

COVID 19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University

The community health center where I went to get my vaccine was not nearly as organized, or serving nearly as many people, as the stadium tours in the US. But what matters is I got that vaccine and a colored piece of paper that will serve as evidence of it and I’m hoping to proudly present that at the border of another country(ies) at some point this year, something I wouldn’t have thought possible a couple of months ago.

Many Senegalese I had spoken to about the vaccine have voiced skepticism and reluctance, but the ones I come into contact with regularly (my physical therapist and my housekeeper) have both come around and to have first round, so that’s a relief.

It was kind of a fluke that I found out where to get it, I had registered with the UN and on a national database and have heard crickets. But I was having dinner at this fantastic hotel in my neighborhood with the extraordinary proprietor, and she gave me the 411. Souadou is terrific example of self-made success that makes you believe in karma in this lifetime. She went to community college in Northern Virginia and paid her tuition by the money she earned as a housekeeper at the Ritz Carlton at Tyson’s. She internalized the ethos of “ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen” and has carefully chosen, trained, and empowered her own staff who are able to provide a level of customer service that is otherworldly. All of her managers are women. She pulled off the impossible and was able to get an unsecured commercial loan to build her boutique luxury hotel on the basis of her commitment and charisma, and she’s managed to pay it off, and, pay the salaries of her staff through 11 months of no guests by selling off personal assets. I’m rooting for her continued success.

Happy vaccining everyone. I feel such joy whenever I learn of one more of us getting stuck. Each jab gets us closer to normal!