Page 168 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

Back then, I could catch 40 awabi a day. 10 years ago, I was down to 4 a day.

Nowadays, if you can find one, that's really something.

With chattering teeth, red eyes, and heavy barrels, the ama emerged from the water

and huddled, ten or twelve to a group, shuddering, kimono-swaddled, around a small pit

fire in the amagoya, their narrow bamboo hut. Later goya were of corrugated tin sheets

held down by rocks. They had showers and places to hang nets and floats, drying

wetsuits, sodden underwear. Some even had doors, which the ama left open to keep

an eye on the ocean. Though they sneaked emulous looks at other people's catches,

they'd run back to the sea if anyone came into difficulty. Sumiko said:

The best thing about being an ama is the ocean. Second best: the snails. Third: the

amagoya. That's our real home.

It was a noisy place. Wood cracking, wetsuits flapping, water hissing on the fire. Loud

gossip, singing, shouting fisherfolk tales ("The Big One" "The One That Got Away"),

boasting and bitterness about the size of the haul and the best and worst divers, bawdy

jokes about husbands and who had better breasts.