1 - At the beginning

Summary

Breath-taking sunsets over Lake Tanganyika

Lake Tanganyika is a long lake that forms a link with the Western Rift Valley of Africa, starting from the Red Sea and ranging from Lake Kivu and Lake Albert to the north, Lake Malawi to the south, finally pouring into the Indian Ocean at Mozambique (Fig. 1.1). With a maximum depth of 1470 m, it is the second deepest lake in the world, after Lake Baikal in Siberia.

Tanganyika is the seventh largest lake in the world, with an area of 32 000 km². It hosts both freshwater and saltwater fish. The saltwater fish include four species of sardine called ‘dagaa’. On nights when the moon is new, you can see men rowing along the water holding high-pressure kerosene lamps called karabai, scooping up dagaa with massive ladle-like nets. Or in the late afternoon, you can see fishermen in schooners dragging nets across the lake’s surface. Trapped dagaa are dried in the sun on the sandy beach and sent to the markets of Kigoma, after being packed in sisal bags.