How can you mend a broken bayou?
Post categories: Robyn in New Orleans
| 04:59 UK time, Saturday, 29 May 2010
Today has been heartbreaking.
I spent the day with fishing families in the Bayou La Loutre, about 30 miles east of New Orleans. Many of them were just recovering from Hurricane Katrina nearly five years ago.
"Now this," shrimping fisherman Charles Robin III told me. "I have no idea why we are constantly kicked while we're down."
I spent the day on the shrimping boat of George Barisich. He too has been on fishing boats since he was in diapers.
"There are fishermen on suicide watch. This is one blow too far. We were on the verge of recovering, but many of us think this is it. The oil has ended any hope we had."
Charles Robin III and George's boats are just across the bayou from one another. They've grown up teasing each other. They still jest, but it's with a visible weariness.
I asked Charles Robin III what fishing meant to him.
He put his head in his hands and began crying.
"It means everything to us. It's all we know. Without it, we're dead."
I'll compile all the tape from the day into a radio package that will start airing on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã World Service on Monday.
Meanwhile, if you have a message for fisherman like George and Charles Robin III, let me know. I've invited them to take part in a live World Have Your Say programme, and I know they're curious to know what the outside world is making of this oil spill.
