CHUAO, Venezuela (AP) — Long before sunrise, dozens of people gather around more than 50 boats along this portion of Venezuela’s vast Caribbean coast, their tanned bodies showing scars and maimed hands from years of fishing. Most of them are men, but women are increasingly among them.
The women may be joining a family tradition of fishing, or in some cases launching new careers after losing jobs during Venezuela’s economic crisis, enlisting in the physically demanding work that may pay $8 after five consecutive 12-hour shifts.
That’s only a fraction of the estimated $390 that a Venezuelan family would need per month to buy a basic basket of goods in the South American country, but it is more than the nationwide $5 monthly minimum wage.
Some fisherwomen clean and process fish. Aguilera, who holds law and culinary degrees, tutors young children and teaches English lessons to older ones. She also photographs baptisms and first communions and is now testing recipes that incorporate cacao, coconut, lime and other regional crops with hopes of opening a café.
“It is very poorly paid,” Chávez, 43, said of the job she formally took up when she was 16.
Electricity goes out frequently in these coastal communities, and internet service is spotty at best. Public school teachers, severely underpaid across the country, show up to classrooms two or three times a week, and daycares are unheard of.
Aguilera said fisherwomen rely on each other and their parents to care for their children while they are at sea. Someone always steps up to ensure that no woman misses a fishing shift.
“The community is machista and matriarchal at the same time,” Aguilera said.
“All women support each other, so if I see that you are in a hurry to take care of your children because your shift is coming up, I easily offer myself (to help you),” Aguilera said. “Your cousin offers herself and her grandmother offers herself, anyone, so that you can go fishing.”
