Chrifa Nimri can often be found threading fishing nets in Port Sidi Bou Said, 20 kilometers northeast of Tunis. It is a job that she does effortlesly as she believes that patience and experience are the most important elements in performing her tasks. Yet as a woman, she often has to go her job alone.
Chrifa Nimri can often be found threading fishing nets in Port Sidi Bou Said, 20 kilometers northeast of Tunis. It is a job that she does effortlesly as she believes that patience and experience are the most important elements in performing her tasks. Yet as a woman, she often has to go her job alone.
“Men cooperate together to clean their fishing nets while I perform this job individually. I understand that they may have men’s chit chat and want to enjoy some privacy, but they respect me in return,” Nimri says.
A fisherman interrupts, “How is the weather today?” to which Nimri smiles with experience and replies in the fisherman’s manner. Then she continues, “My favorite program on television is the weather forecast, but sometimes their forecasts are mistaken and I, therefore, monitor the weather with my own sailor’s sense.”
Family of fishermen
Nimri was born into a family of fishermen. Her father, uncle and grandfather used to make a living out of this profession and she has been following their footsteps for 28 years.
When her uncle died in 1985, he left her a fishing boat. Since then, she has spent her life between land and sea where she casts her nets and returns the next day to gather her catch.
Nimri has spent most of her 65 years at sea, including 17 years accompanied by her boat ‘Theresa’. “I am accustomed to the sea. I love this sense of freedom I get there and I will not give it up even if I am offered 100 times my income,” she says.
Nimri continues her story gazing at the right side of the sea for reasons only she knows. “Out there, I talk to my self and confess my secrets and worries to the sea. I love it like I do my children, but at the same time it frightens me because it is hard and dangerous far beyond your imagination and all fishermen fear of it,” she claims.
Working mother
The sea for Nimri is more than a mere source of livelihood, it is a homeland to where she escapes for hours to get a feeling of confidence and freedom that millions dream about but only few enjoy.
She studied at a girls’ primary school in Sidi Bou Said after which she studied English at Bourguiba Institute of Modern Languages in Tunis. In 1967, she worked as a babysitter at the United States Embassy for four years then in 1971, she married a man who has little to do with the sea.
“When my son was ten, he accompanied me to the sea. Suddenly, we experienced high waves and I held him and protected him while using my experience to handle a raging sea and make a living,” she recalls.
Nimri wakes up every day at three in the morning to pray, read Koranic verses and perform some household duties and at four she heads to the sea to collect her day’s catch.
“I do not support Ennahda”
Nimri says she does not like politics. She did not elect any party on the October 23rd 2012 elections – the first after the revolution – since she was not fully aware of their agendas or backgrounds. Nevertheless, she says she will never vote for Ennahda. “Being a Muslim does not necessarily mean supporting the Ennahda Party,” she says.
“I will vote for the party which is responsible enough to run the country and I might vote for Beji Caid el Sebsi (former Prime Minister) just because he is well experienced, contrary to the current rulers who do not have the required knowledge but only shower us with promises and empty words,” she explains.
