The beach of La Restinga is perhaps the largest in Nueva Esparta and the rest of the country, but the critical situation that tourism is experiencing throughout the country has literally annulled one of the main trades of native women, such as oyster farming, from which they have lived for many years.
Lapatilla.com
Currently there are 28 women who make up the La Restinga Oyster Association, an partnership that barely survives due to the absence of tourists on these beautiful coasts that can be reached by road, but national and foreign visitors prefer to arrive via a boat ride that lasts approximately 15 minutes from the “Indio” pier to the small fishing village.
María Gregoria Vicent regretted that they have to extract the mangrove oyster, scientifically known as Crassostrea rhizophorae, twice a week.
She explains that they row from their homes to the lagoon to begin the work in search for the catch that provides for the family sustenance.
“All our lives, it is women who have extracted the oysters, even though it is not a simple activity,” she insists.
She adds that this dynamic is due to the fact that it has been the way in which the locals traditionally have divided the work of the sea for a long time.
Ascensión González remembers that they have always lived off the extraction of oysters, but in recent times the situation has become uphill for them to survive.
“When we sell a dozen oysters, we can buy a packet of flour for arepas or funche, but if there is no one to sell it to, we often have to go to the pier to sell it to the workers there,” she explains.
The other option they have to earn income is making necklaces with the shells of mollusks, but that work was entrusted to the children of the town and now the authorities of the National Parks Institute have prohibited minors from engaging in that activity so that they do not bother the tourists.
They indicate that the few tourists who arrive now are Polish, but they do so for the walk along the lagoon or to enjoy the beautiful beach of La Restinga.
