“Click…click…splash” the rhythm of rowing make an andante symphony through the gigantic wrinkle silvery water. My fingers wrapping the row bar. My arm stiffened as a pulling twenty kilogram solid rock up to the surface. I am relaxing for an only second then continued again lifted another stoned oar. The oars went click, click, and click again and again. They kept in perfect time in their wooden rowlock, and I never paused once during the long forty five minutes journey.
An arrogant hill standing tall and proud, no smile at all, as bitter as a quinine pills curing malaria patient in Africa. They all staring at me like a tyrants eyes willing to send you to any underground bunker if I am fail to finish my trips the promises island in the other Volta Rivers.
I saw other canoe zooming through my puffing and huffing breath. The sound was like a turbo machines. The man inside it is only wearing his shorts. I can see vividly his shiny anthracite coal color of his body and his deltoid muscles moving congenially with his pulling row. He brought his fishing net in the other end of his canoe. He whistles like a flipping singing dolphin. He must be contented with his catch today. His wife will welcome him with daisy smiles, his children will dance around the house, they will be grateful. Most of local people at Volta Rivers row and catch fish for survival. They did not do for fun or exercises. They do not have time for wasting their energy if they did not get something to eat in returns. Their daily life, seem far from nice lives even farther more from living high on the hog.
I slow my rowing and fully stop in the middle of the river near Volta Dam. I take my fishing rod ready. The color of the handle is as bright as fresh cherry syrup. I change the hooks from a big one to a medium one. I lift up one soil worms that are as skinny as a paper line. I hook it own and throw it into the water. These fishing rods with bait, canoe and Volta River send shivers of joy rippling over my skin. The sound of fishing rod string making a frictions in the air make my mind dive into colorfully fishes when summer in Sharm EL-Sheik, Egypt.
Wind kisses my faces tenderly. Tweeting birds singing along, breeze swirling like a tango dancer. I only hear a pin drop here. The colorful floater swinging elegantly following river flow but it’s quiet still. The canoe wrapped me in, as snug as a bug in a rug.
Bolt from the blue my hand trembling, the fishing rod bent down, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail my reflexes work as lightning. I grab and roll up the strings as tornado in Sahara.
“Aha…well…well” I speak to myself. Around thirty centimeter Tilapia fish, I bet, floundering and flickering trying to escape from dry air. On this dog days of summer the fish gill must dried immediately.
I catch him and lay him down in the bottom of my canoe; take put a hook away from Tilapia mouth as soft as baby penguin feather, as slow as crawling snails. I put him in the bucket full of clear emerald color water. He swam around with honor like a queen walking in the altar before crowning event. He was not showing his frantic movement as he did previous. I stare at him. He is silky grey soft fish. The Tilapia fish will hit the road in my extravaganza fishing chapters.
Volta Lake, Akosombo, Ghana
Salam Rindu Dari Semak Belukar Afrika
