and Fishes...

 I have gone to the fish market twice now. It's best to go early when the picking is fresh, when the vendors are alert and the fishermen, just back from the night's catch, are mending their nets. There are also fish vendors in the back of a pick-up or with a bucket on their head...a 'home-delivery' of sorts... hollering up and down the streets: "Peixe...Fresco...P-E-I-X-E...F-R-E-S-C-O (Fish Fresh).  I prefer the fish market very early.

We like swordfish (Serra) and tuna the best so far.  We have tried the orange garoupa and the small silver fish also.

I stand and watch as the women scrape some of the scratchy scales from my purchase.  Is this really me standing here...willing to take whole fish from mud water into my casa with eyes and fins and tails still staring at me?  In my world, the fish come in even filets, displayed on ice in clean plastic and styrofoam packages with labels shouting nutrition.  

I think of the women here and of our mothers and grandmothers and theirs as they cut and scraped and cleaned and cooked and cared about their families 'from scratch' ...and am thankful that the ocean is close to our cement homes here in Cabo Verde.  For a moment I am surrounded by parables. For a grateful moment I think I understand  a bit better about the loaves and the fishes...