Kayar is a small fishing village on the seafront in Senegal. Every year for six months the village doubles its population by hosting thousands of seasonal migrants from fishing. Women, children, these tribes take up residence in precarious conditions, push the walls, invade the schools and the beach. For here, a deep abyss a few kilometers from the shore, makes it possible to collect tons of fish coming to take refuge there during the “campaign”, from January to June. A continuous show where traditional methods (chains of collection, counting system, smoking and drying of the fish with branches of filao) are used in parallel with modern techniques (meshes of the nets, laboratory Control and establishment of a marine protected area), where a compact crowd is seen rushing to the boats returning from fishing while the children play in the clear waters among the canoes, between “sky and sea”. A micro-economy that draws its links between tradition and modernity, and which nevertheless feeds many fish stalls in the world.
Nathalie Guironnet
