The sunrise glared purple and orange over the palm trees, the colors mirrored in the Indian Ocean, but a different spectrum caught my eye, guiding my morning walk. On the far side of Passikudah Bay, the paint on a school of fishing boats gleamed algae green and saltwater blue as groups of men dragged each wooden hull out of the water by hand.
Smiling young boys, still excited by their catch, unloaded sardines the size of the fingers I’d later use to eat them. Unsmiling old men, their enthusiasm squished by the daily work, strung up flat fish that dwarfed their upper bodies. At first, I peered from the outskirts of the informal market (which was little more than a tarp spread between the breaking waves and a truck full of ice to transport the fish across the country). Soon, though, I was met with the same rampant friendliness as I was everywhere in Sri Lanka, and followed instructions to crowd in with the dozen or so fishermen and fish-buyers of the market.
The juxtaposition of people dealing pennies for three-inch fish pulled from the ocean in the shadow of multi-million dollar hotels was dizzying—or perhaps that was the heat, which at six am, was already nearing unbearable. Even though only two of the luxury hotels on the half-moon bay were open yet, seven more were under construction: rebar and concrete in constant motion, rising with the speed of an incoming tide. The fish market huddled at the far end of the bay, as if pushed out by the explosion of infinity pools splashing onto the beach with the excitement of a golden retriever. Like an overexcited dog that can’t see the destruction of the lawn but for the Frisbee in the air, the new construction appeared ignorant (willfully so) of the old tradition it might displace.
One of the men at the market spoke to me, heavily accented English flowing from beneath a bushy mustache. Not very many people walked the 500 yards up the beach at this ungodly hour of the morning to see a fish market, it seemed. I wondered if it could continue to operate in its little corner of the beach as the resorts multiplied, or if the boys, so proud of their sardines, would have to find different work.
Perhaps my years of travel jaded me, or maybe it was my studies of post-colonial Latin America that rendered me unable to simply enjoy my time at the resort, but whatever the reason, I couldn’t help but wonder if we were laying our towels on the sands of a future Koh Phi Phi or Cabo San Lucas. In ten years, would there be a Señor Frog’s nestled into one of the huts of the $200-a-night faux fishing village hotel next door? And if there were, what of the fishermen I met this morning? Would their lives be better or worse?
Over lunch, Mercy Johns complains about hiring village boys at her guest house, Victoria, just across the road from the beachfront hotels. “I am good to them, I hire and I train them. Then they go work for the big resorts.” She speaks ten languages, and cooks a mean rice and curry. She gives me a tour of her medicinal garden and teaches me the culinary and curative benefits of many plants. But the boys she hires locally don’t speak any English or even Sinhala (the most widely-spoken language in Sri Lanka), so other than the ones lucky enough to put in time at the Victoria, they have trouble getting jobs in the hotels—whose big-money business catering to wealthy Colombo folk and Westerners requires such things.
Later in the afternoon, I rent a kayak from our hotel. In place of the type of waiver you’d sign to get such a thing at home, I’m given a safety lesson: if anything happens and I fall out of the boat, just stand up and stay put, they’ll come get me. The whole bay is only about 3 feet deep, even 50 feet out. I laugh and take the kayak up to the north end of the beach. Not far from where the fish market was that morning, I see a commotion. A large wooden raft not far from shore is struggling under the weight of a dozen young men. Three more men are helping from the water. Helping with what? I paddle closer to find out. A large, bell-shaped piece of cement dotted with softball-sized holes seems to be the source of the excitement. With the guidance from their friends in the water, they eke it to the edge of the raft, the extra boys rushing to the far side to counter the weight. Finally, they heave it off the raft, catapulting many of the boys into the water as well. An artificial reef, I finally realize.
Again, I take to wondering, this time, if the fish they’re hoping to bring in with it are for their boats and nets or for future tourists with snorkels.
Naomi Tomky is the unrelentingly enthusiastic eater, photographer, and writer behind the blog The GastroGnome. Since 2006, she’s brought her (sometimes over) eager mouth to tables around the world in search of new things to shove in it. She lives in Seattle with her husband and a muppet-like dog.