Day 6 May 27 – 11.45 PM – The Tour de Fish
Today I got the grand tour of the Central Lab for Aquaculture Research. I sat around in Dr. Said’s office for about an hour before we did anything. His office is like a PH.D. party room; tea, coffee, and conversation. He then set me up with someone to give me an in-depth tour of the C.L.A.R. hatchery and ponds.
The indoor hatchery is in four parts, each in their own room. First there is the large hatchery. It has all the equipment for hatching eggs, artificial spawning, and fry tanks. The second room has a fresh water tank (couldn’t understand the reason), and a few other tanks for fingerlings. The third room has seven or eight small fish tanks which each contain two coy. The last room is a hallway in which the workers live, they have a mattress on the floor and a mosquito net.
Then I took a tour of the about thirty ponds which contain Tilapia, Catfish, and Cod(I think it was cod). The pods contained very dirty water; the water is sand and stone filtered from a Nile canal. Many of the ponds were divided into sections by nets; some of the fish nets were actually used mosquito nets.
I was then invited to tag along with an Arab tour group of about 8 women as they toured the farm. I went with them to see a few of the actual laboratories. We got a quick tour of the algae lab and the fish disease lab.
Back home I realized I can’t cook. I’m used to precooked everything. Like sausage, normally you just stick those bad boys in a pan and put it medium. It is much easier when you can read the words on the stove and the instructions on the box. Long story short, I ruined some sausage. :(
As I am writing this I realize my feet are covered with insect bites
The mosquitoes have been very unobtrusive, they leave me alone
Lots of bees and wasps on the outside walls of my house
The dirty Nile water and all around dirty conditions of the farm have caused many more instances of disease compared to Desert Tilapia – Hyder Arizona.
5 comments:
Hi Son,
Back from Korea and catching up on your blog. Glad to hear you have been having wide-ranging discussions with people there. It is a great opportunity to learn so much that is difficult to absorb within our own culture. I expect that you will start helping in the hatchery and farm ponds soon. You might also offer your help on the rice fields and learn about the irrigation system and agronomics of the rice planting, irrigation, fertilization, and harvest. Of special interest should be the fertilizer value of the fish effluent on the rice. Maybe you can help with wataer quality monitoring of rice with and without fish water. You might also study the water a bit. What you call dirty, may have algae and sediment. That would make it turbid. Dirty does not really mean anything from a technical sense.
Curious, you mention you could not get WiFi to work. Are you able to hook in with your cable?
By the way, you might want to write your messages in Word first, spell and grammar check, and reread, and then cut and paste onto the blog site. Save yourself some extra work later when you turn stuff in to Dr. Mangin.
Keep up the good work.
Dad
PMF,
Wow, that was some serious writing on international relations and culture. Well done! A/C and TV and a shower? I thought you were supposed to be "roughing" it? Keep the posts coming.
UC
Dear Patrick,
We got your new blog site from your dad when we met in Busan. It's good to know that you are doing some science in Egypt. Keep up the good work, have fun but be safe.
Our best regards,
Bong & Med Bolivar
Philippines
Dad knows best Patrick... spell and grammar check, a wonderful invention. I may try it some day.. ha
Sabino is proud of you!!!
Take Care.
Alex Sierra
Patrick,
It sounds like you are having lots of new experiences. It is always amazing how Americans always believe that our free press means that we get all of the story. One hates to be cynical, but we are fed the information that the politicians want us to get. Too often we think that because it is written in the paper that it has to be true. There are always two sides to every story. I hope you figure out the WiFi you are tech savy. Since this is a college project I would agree with your dad spell check. (It makes you seem educated)
Dr. Schulter
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