Fish

On our first morning in Mesta, Friday, we were awakened by the sound of someone shouting through a bullhorn.  This is a VERY quiet town, so the effect was quite dramatic.  Alec pulled on his shorts and went outside to find out what was going on.  It turns out that a man was driving a little white truck down the street—the interior of the back was set up as a fish stand, complete with crushed ice.  Alec told the guy that if he got a big fish—he only had small, fishy fish that day—we’d buy it.  Sure enough, on Saturday he had a medium-sized fish, big enough for Alec and I to share for dinner.  Alec borrowed our neighbor’s grill (she owns the local mini mart) and cooked it up for dinner.  It was delicious.

Our children do not get very excited about eating fish.  C.C., who has been asking to go fishing since the day we left Barcelona, maintains that she will eat the fish she catches.  You would think, with all of the beaches we’ve been near, it would have been easy to find someone to take us out on a boat.  And we have tried or, I should say, Alec has tried.  But finally, Vasilio found a guy for us in Mesta Port who would take us out for three hours on Sunday.   Vasilio, sensing the urgency of the situation, gave the guy strict instructions to make sure the kids caught fish.

C.C. caught her first fish with my dad, at the age of two.  She came back from the excursion with him clutching the little fish tightly in her fist, grinning from ear to ear.  Milo, although he has been fishing before, had never caught a fish. Until yesterday.  I opted to stay home—I needed a little time and space more than I needed a fishing trip.

When they found me in the town square upon their return, the kids had huge smiles on their faces; Alec looked a little weary.  Milo had caught his first fish.  It didn’t matter to him that it was tiny.  He was ecstatic. 

They really wanted us to cook up their fish for dinner.  Alec said the fisherman who had taken them out seemed surprised when Alec asked him for the fish to take home.  I think he would have used them for bait.  Our neighbor advised Alec to make a soup with them.  Let me just say that fish soup is about the last thing my kids would eat.  So we convinced them that the best thing would be to give them away to a neighbor, and to let us find them a fish they might actually enjoy eating.