It was early, before the sun’s warming rays touched the land. A group of women waited with their donkeys for the tide to turn. Their feet were bare, their clothes shabby and worn. They followed the receding water out across the estuary, at first in single file, past the deep channels of treacherous running water, and then spreading out, each to their own bed. The donkeys followed without fuss, they knew the way and had trod the path a hundred times before. Some women walked t