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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/world/rwandan-women-paddle-into-the-male-world-of-fishing.html?utm_source=Master+List+%28formerly+New+Website+List%29&utm_campaign=e5938265e9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_12_07_04_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1dec96ef0-e5938265e9-234918309">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/world/rwandan-women-paddle-into-the-male-world-of-fishing.html?utm_source=Master+List+%28formerly+New+Website+List%29&utm_campaign=e5938265e9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_12_07_04_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1dec96ef0-e5938265e9-234918309</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#121212">Rwanda - Women’s Fishing Cooperative Builds More Empowerment & Equality
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333;letter-spacing:.05pt">“Now a woman can say: ‘I can build a house by myself. I can look after my family properly. And even if my husband dies, we can live a better life.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><img border="0" width="601" height="400" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D49182.61F35520" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/11/24/fashion/24-FISHERWOMEN-RWANDA1/merlin_140559339_dcc3e99f-595d-4363-9164-cd7fe1965687-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#666666">Zawadi Karikumutima, a 34-year-old mother of two, maneuvers a pirogue on Lake Kivu, while she and members of her fishing cooperative test the catch for the
next day’s fishing, near the village of Musasa, Rwanda. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in"> Credit;
</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333">Holly Pickett for The New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:#121212;letter-spacing:.25pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:#121212;letter-spacing:.25pt">By Shannon Sims - Photographs by Holly Pickett<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333">LAKE KIVU, RWANDA — In the evening, the green leaves of the verdant hills of Lake Kivu turned black against the orange sky, and a calm settled across the water. And then, out
of the silence, came a call: “Here we go! May God watch over us!” It’s a refrain that is a tradition here on Lake Kivu, where for generations men have cast out at sunset on small wooden boats to fish through the night. But that night, it was chanted by women.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333">Zawadi Karikumutima, 32, readied her boat for a night on the water. She was not alone. Several other women loaded wooden rafts with supplies, while their children watched them
from the muddy banks, and prepared themselves for the long night ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333">“I am very tired when I come back,” said Ms. Karikumutima as she pushed the boat around in the muddy shore. Sometimes she comes back with enough fish to sell to support her family
for weeks at a time. “But sometimes I return with pretty much nothing,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333">Some fishermen and women on Lake Kivu cast their nets at sunset and return before dawn to collect their trappings. But that method can be risky: the nets can be tampered with,
or the catch scooped up by interlopers in the midnight hours while everyone else is asleep. So instead, many of the fisherwomen choose to spend their nights on the water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><img border="0" width="601" height="400" id="Picture_x0020_4" src="cid:image002.jpg@01D49182.61F35520" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/11/24/fashion/24-FISHERWOMEN-RWANDA6/merlin_140562297_12b7370f-0f0f-4acf-b60c-8f9449d92d9d-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#666666">Women make their way down to Lake Kivu to buy fish for the local markets from the fishermen who have been out during the night.
</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Credit</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt">Holly
Pickett for The New York Times</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333">But nights on the lake can be uncomfortable and even dangerous, for any number of reasons — wind and pirates, among others. Last year, as a single mother, Ms. Karikumutima had
no choice but to bring her infant baby out on the wooden boat with her at night, lying the baby down on a blanket in the hull of the canoe while she paddled from one net to another in the cold and the rain. The intense physical work and danger that comes with
fishing on Lake Kivu, along with reinforcement from traditional gender roles, kept women from fishing for generations, tending to backyard farms instead. But in post-genocide Rwanda, that seems to be changing.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">Today, women form an essential part of the national market for Lake Kivu fish. Besides fishing on the lake at night, women also gather along the shores in the early morning to buy
the fish the fisherwomen deliver. They then haul those fish home to their small villages, or sell the fish to cooperatives. At the cooperatives, other women manage drying stations, where the fish are turned into a more compact, shriveled-up product that’s
easier to transport. Women transport the fish across the country, in buckets and sacks, and they also sell the fish in urban markets all around the country, to landlocked Rwandans. The fish economy has created opportunities for women to form collectives and
income.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">Bonifrida Mukabideri often fishes with Ms. Karikumutima and is a founding member of Projet Pêche, a fishing cooperative in Kibuye, a resort town along the banks of Lake Kivu, made
up of 87 women. “A lot of women have used the cooperatives to fight poverty. Here in Rwanda we now have the idea that women and men can do every job,” said Ms. Mukabideri, who supports 10 children, and has found a confidence boost by being a part of the cooperative.
“I am very proud to be a part of the cooperative. Now a woman can say: ‘I can build a house by myself. I can look after my family properly. And even if my husband dies, we can live a better life.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><img border="0" width="601" height="400" id="Picture_x0020_9" src="cid:image003.jpg@01D49182.61F35520" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/11/24/fashion/24-FISHERWOMEN-RWANDA3/merlin_140562393_52be404d-180e-4d02-a78f-eaaca7438e6c-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#666666">Rachel Nyirarvshisha, right, dries sambaza fish in preparation for selling them in Kibuye, Rwanda.
</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Credit</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt">Holly
Pickett for The New York Times</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">On a recent early morning at the collective, the sambaza had just been delivered from the night fisherwomen. Dozens of women at the cooperative meticulously arranged them so that
no fish overlapped with another; the idea was to allow the sun to dry all the fish evenly, which happens after about 48 sunny hours. Sold dry sambaza go for a higher price than they do fresh. And in Eastern Rwanda, they form a central part of the edible economy;
almost every dish in the restaurants along the lush banks of Lake Kivu incorporates sambaza, but perhaps most tastily as the crispy fried accompaniment to a sunset beer.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">Rachel Nyirarvshisha, 43, had spent the night fishing, and that morning, she was busy cutting deals on her sambaza at the Projet Pêche fishing cooperative in Kibuye.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">“Don’t argue with me! It’s 2,000 francs. Dried is 6,000. Cash in person,” Ms. Nyirarvshisha said. She hung up the phone with a humph, and a satisfied smile.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#666666">A few times a week, women from Projet Pêche sell what’s caught at this wholesale market. The unsold fish is dried and used for other cooking purposes.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Published
On</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333">Nov. 30, 2018<span style="border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">CreditCredit</span>Holly Pickett for The New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">Five years ago, Ms. Nyirarvshisha’s life was very different. She’s from the Rwandan capital of Kigali, about a four-hour bus ride away, and took on odd jobs to support her two children.
But in just the past few years, women like Ms. Nyirarvshisha have broken into the world of fishing, with a focus on the business side. Though not even five feet tall, Ms. Nyirarvshisha stands out for her bullheaded business style; she’s the top seller among
the women in the cooperative.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">Part of the reason women have entered the world of fishing in recent years has to do — as so many things do in Rwanda — with the country’s history.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><img border="0" width="601" height="400" id="Picture_x0020_13" src="cid:image005.jpg@01D49182.61F35520" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/11/24/fashion/24-FISHERWOMEN-RWANDA10/merlin_140559450_47de6706-84e1-4232-b6dc-19f16fbb282f-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#666666">Members of a fishing cooperative paddle their pirogues back to Musasa Island after searching for the most plentiful nearby fishing areas on Lake Kivu.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Credit</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt">Holly
Pickett for The New York Times</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-right:15.0pt;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:15.0pt">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/14/world/rwandians-in-death-squad-say-choice-was-kill-or-die.html?module=inline"><span style="color:#326891;text-decoration:none">In 1994,
Lake Kivu was a bloody place</span></a>; the lush hills hid nightmarish scenes. The communities around the lake were ravaged by the chaos of the genocide, and Kibuye in particular was the site of some of the most gruesome incidents.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">In the church on the road into Kibuye, thousands of Tutsi were murdered; survivors hid beneath the bodies for days. Just a five-minute walk up the hill from the fishing cooperative
where Ms. Nyirarvshisha now dries her fish, the remaining Tutsis gathered at the soccer stadium for protection a few days after the church massacre. But Hutus climbed the walls around the field and fired down into the people, killing another several thousand
people. Some tried to escape by lurching toward the lake in a bid to<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/18/survived-rwanda-genocide" target="_blank"><span style="color:#326891;text-decoration:none"> swim across the waters at night</span></a>;
an unknown number drowned. In the Kibuye area, 90 percent of the Tutsi population was killed in the genocide. The vibrant hills around Lake Kivu served as the backdrop for one of the darkest chapters in modern human history.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">In rebuilding the country, the new government insisted on policies underpinned by the concept of equality, and the slogan “We are all Rwandans.” That included women.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">The genocide left Rwanda with a population that was 70 percent female; many women started fishing out of necessity, with so many primary breadwinner killed. But women in Rwanda
have also started fishing thanks to changing concepts of gender; post-genocide, Rwandan society suddenly opened to the idea of female labor equality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><img border="0" width="601" height="391" id="Picture_x0020_15" src="cid:image006.jpg@01D49182.61F35520" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/11/24/fashion/24-FISHERWOMEN-RWANDA7/merlin_140559372_42d421be-c04b-4882-9658-76780126d46c-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#666666">Zawadi Karikumutima, left, and Drocella Muhawenimana pull fishing nets from Lake Kivu.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Credit</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt">Holly
Pickett for The New York Times</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">There is a male leader at the top of Projet Pêche — the only man involved: Robert Ngendahayo. Mr. Ngendahayo, 36, said the reason women were only now entering the fishing marketplace
is because for many years, no one fished. “It was not safe to be out on the boat for many years after 1994. Someone would come and attack you and stab you,” he said. The dark water of the lake at night became a kind of secondary war zone, where the new government
controls being installed hadn’t yet reached, and where you could still be killed on the basis of your perceived ethnicity. Mr. Ngendahayo estimates that night activity on the water started up again about seven years after the genocide, and then, only minimally
and with caution for another decade, he said.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:#CCCCCC;text-transform:uppercase"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">Plus, spending the night on the boat with men was just not considered suitable for women. “Women farmed instead, and fishing was for men,” said Albert Ngeze. Mr. Ngeze, 57, is a
boat builder who bends the wood by hand to make the boats used on Lake Kivu. A former fisherman himself and now one of the oldest boat builders in the area, he has seen firsthand the way that things here have changed.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">“When I was young, and before the genocide, it was impossible to see women fishing,” he said. “But today we are happy for women to join us on the water. I think only a small percentage
of men do not understand that. I think this century, everyone must understand that.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><img border="0" width="601" height="394" id="Picture_x0020_17" src="cid:image007.jpg@01D49182.61F35520" alt="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/11/24/fashion/24-fisherwomen-rwanda12/merlin_140559429_3f2cbf12-9c4a-45c7-9178-7b63ec6767bf-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#666666">Members of a fishing cooperative sing as they depart their island to search for the most plentiful nearby fishing areas on Lake Kivu, Rwanda.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in">Credit</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#888888;letter-spacing:.1pt">Holly
Pickett for The New York Times</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:#333333"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">Today, Mr. Ngendahayo calls the lake “100 percent safe,” but that’s not entirely true. For one, there’s the wind, which blows hard, especially during March and April. In the middle
of the lake, a capsized boat can mean a long wait for help, if it makes it. There are also pirates, who, depending on the security conditions on land in either Rwanda or Democratic Republic of Congo, where there has been armed conflict for over 25 years, will
maraud with impunity, leaving the already-poor fishermen and women with nothing, save their lives — if they’re lucky.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">But on a summertime morning the women smiled as they rowed smoothly across the water, their strong arms propelled the boats forward. These women once, not long ago, fought for their
lives; a night on the lake, in comparison, and a chance to feed their families, is a risk many of them take. Ms. Mukabideri said she is happy when she is on the water. “Nowadays, all around the world things are changing, and so are we here,” she said. “If
I can go and spend a night out on the water, then it shows that things have changed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">As Ms. Mukabideri and Ms. Karikumutima set out with other women, they fell into a rhythm. Once out on the open water, they synchronized, and their chant became a kind of meditation,
a hum as powerful as a drum beat, both soothing in its repetition and exciting in its rumble as it bounced off the hillsides.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:#CCCCCC;text-transform:uppercase"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">“Here we go!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">_____<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-right:15.0pt;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:15.0pt">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:nyt-imperial;color:#333333">Shannon Sims, Holly Pickett, and Clàudia Prat were 2018 African Great Lakes Reporting Fellows with the International Women’s Media Foundation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333">_________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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