Hi! My name’s Maiñe, I’m seven years old and from Tolenn. Today’s my first day of being a real fish­er­man, just like my dad was. Because my mum and dad aren’t here any­more I have to grow up strong and be a good fish­er­man so I’m start­ing to learn today! The priest­ess taught me to write which is very use­ful because it means I can write about what fish­ing is like.

The boat is being pushed into the water now by all the fish­er­men. They say I am not strong enough to push too but they say that if I work hard I will be strong very soon. I hope that is true.

It is an hour later and we are out at sea. The sky is nice and sunny. There is no land here and the water is very deep not like it is at the beach. I have been help­ing to throw nets in the water, it is fun but hard work. The net is mostly full of holes but it is still very heavy!

Now we are wait­ing for the fish to come. There is lots of wait­ing when you are fish­ing. The other fish­er­men are teach­ing me a game of rolling dice in a box which is fun while we are wait­ing. They are slid­ing coins around and drink­ing orange stuff, they say I can roll the dice but I can’t slide the coins or drink the orange stuff until I am a proper fish­er­man which will be very soon.

It has taken a long time and the sun is really hot now and it’s time to bring in the nets. It is hard work even with me and all the fish­er­men but even­tu­ally the whole boat is cov­ered with fish and the net is all in. We are happy because the catch was good, we have enough for the whole vil­lage to eat and plenty to sell to the man from Pal­ad­ina who buys our fish.

Now we are back at the shore and the fishermen’s wives are cook­ing the fish. We are allowed to relax because we have worked hard, so I am going to play on the beach with my friends and then we will eat fish. Raien pats me on the head and says I will be strong and a fish­er­man very soon now.