And we thought there were two houses there.

Our neighbor, Regina, and all of the women who live in her house are always walking by our porch in the morning to the market with baskets of dried fish, or what is locally called “bony.”  We always just thought that Regina bought the bony in bulk and then sold it in the market in order to make a small profit.  Little did we know what was really happening next door to us.

One day, we see this truck pull up to their house and start throwing large, gray things on the ground.  We could see blood, too, and we weren’t really sure of what was going on.  Being classic Liberian neighbors, we headed over there to see what was happening.  There, we came across large manta-ray-looking creatures.  Robertson was dragging each one across the yard towards the house next to Regina’s house.  We were so confused as to what was going on, and I think the entire neighborhood was amused at our confusion, for soon, there was a crowd of about 30 standing around these creatures.

Sarah asked Robertson what these creatures were called, and he informed us they are “sea bats.”  That was really helpful, Robertson, so thanks.  Seven or eight of these had been thrown off the truck before Robertson started dragging them to the house, and soon, they were all inside.  We asked him what Regina was going to do with them, and he informed us they were going to chop them up, smoke them, and sell them in the market.  He then invited us into (what we thought was) the house, and it turns out that Regina has four large smoking ovens inside where she smokes her bony. 

The selling of fish by this family made so much more sense to us at that moment.  Sometimes, if the wind is right, we will smell a very strong fish smell, and we were always wondering where that was coming from.  Additionally, Regina is always going to Harper, and we soon figured out she goes to buy lots of fresh fish to make bony.  The sea bat was an additional oddity, I think, and I’m guessing she gets a good price for that at the market.

Robertson and Sarah
...her face is the best. 

Yep, those are "sea bats." 

Sarah and I went inside for the night, marveling over what we had discovered about Regina and her job.  The next morning, I asked Robertson if they had gotten all of the sea bats into the ovens.  They had, and, in fact, they had been up until 11:00 pm doing it.  The dedication of that entire household to selling fish is amazing to me.  Regina works hard every day around her house, never mind all of the work she does into smoking the fish to sell in the market.  We sure are lucky to live next to such an industrious woman.