“Wuunkha” or ” wuunkhela?” Does it stink or does it smell good? Some things are very culture-driven and this is one of them. For many Mwinika the smell of fish is a good smell. It is their staple food. I have seen people walk up to an area where someone is selling fish and say: “Wow. That smells good!” I always find that humorous because that is not what I am thinking when I smell fish. I think fish stinks (and there are a fair number of Mwinika people who would agree.) In fact the association is institutionalized in our idioms. When we say “something smells fishy” it is not a compliment.
Every morning around day-break a sizable percentage of the area’s young men ride by my house on their way to find fish. They are the middle men in the fish business. Depending on the weather, sometimes they go to the ocean and sometimes they go to the big marsh that surrounds the little raised ridge where our village is. There they buy the fish from the fishermen who use traps to catch small fish. You have to wade out into the marsh (see picture) to get to the traps. Every afternoon these guys take their fish back to the inland markets to sell. When the wind is blowing our way, which it usually is, wave after wave of fish-smell wafts into our house as they ride by. Usually it isn’t too bad then as the fish are relatively fresh. After they have sat a while or been dried, well, that is another story.