Life around Lake Victoria

Before the wind rises, the canoes come in. It happens quickly — six o'clock the water is a sheet, seven o'clock it is chopped white, and everything that needed to be caught has been caught.

On the shore the work is old and unhurried: split, salt lightly, lay out on raised reed racks where the air moves. No ice. No chemicals. Only sun and wind, which is how this coast has preserved fish for as long as anyone has kept count.

By the time the racks are full the beach smells of woodsmoke and lake water, and the children are already carrying the first trays up the path.