On The Waterfont - Honestly!

This morning we motored over to the fishing village where we pulled up again at the cheroot maker’s house. We were going to see life on the water through a villager’s eyes.

The previous day we had received an informal demonstration in the village on cheroot-making from three ladies who worked with great skill and at breakneck speed.

Once the cheroots are inspected they are grouped into 50s or 100s but no one counts – fingers are stretched around a large handful of the finished product and when it feels right, there is confidence that the appropriate number has been reached. Joe demonstrated the technique. The bundle, destined for sale in the market, is quickly tied with raffia and set aside.

Back on the dock the ladies removed the rattan mats they had been sitting on to make cheroots, placing them on the base of the canoe that would take us around the village so that they covered a couple of minor leaks.

Stepping into the flat-bottomed narrow wooden canoe proved to be an exercise in concentration and balance. We both sat down rather awkwardly on the mats and as I adjusted myself in the swaying boat, I found myself gripping its sides only to find that my fingers were knuckle deep in water.

Clearly we were quite literally going to be “on the water” and hopefully not "in the water".

For the next hour the cheroot maker’s young son paddled us along the watery streets where morning commerce was underway. Similar boats passed us laden with produce or vegetation from the lake bottom destined for the floating gardens. Women washed their clothes - and their children - from a canoe or from the wooden steps of their homes.

Grandmothers hung out washing to dry, threading garments on to bamboo poles, ducks cackled loudly, a pig in its elevated bamboo sty snorted and cats stalked through the collection of stilt supports and moored canoes in businesslike fashion.

Not many men around – they were hard at work out in the lake bringing in the day’s catch.

Back at the cheroot maker’s house a couple of people were looking out of their windows to watch the spectacle of us trying to get out of the canoe on to the dock.

It wasn’t a pretty sight but it was probably the best entertainment they had had in a while.

We were as graceful as we could manage, given the situation.