If They Say It Can’t Be Done, Do It

Day 22 June 12 – If They Say It Can’t Be Done, Do It

Today was my last day at Cafrashey, I was sad to go and say goodbye to Dr. Ishmail. I got up relatively early and watched another fingerling sale; that is the third time this week. Dr. Ishmail was feeling sick today so he stayed in his room most of the day. Ahmed ran the show again today because Dr. Mohamed was gone and Dr. Ishmail incapacitated.
After the fingerling sale, during a break, I played football (soccer) with the workers. I’m in good enough shape to keep up easily but I havn’t played in years are I was awful. I made one goal while allowing about 5 or 6. Also, Egpyt is, as you can imagine, pretty damn hot. I was drenched and nasty after the ten minute game.
The next order of business was harvesting an old brood stock. Mothers and fathers are used three times then given a year break. Once they can no longer produce, like these fish, they are sold for food. These were big fish, each full adult size. The fish are harvested from a very muddy pit, this was the first time I decided to “just watch.” I was leaving soon and didn’t feel like doing all the work to get clean, cleaning really is a process when nobody has outdoor hoses.
Well the time had finally come for my thank you lunch of steak and soda. I quickly found that this was not going to be as easy as I thought. No coal, cook was not informed and used some of the meat, timing was bad. Well after about 30 minutes I recognized that all of these problems were in people’s heads. All I had to do to make it happen was, as Nike said, “Just Do It.”
With a little help from Dr. Ishmail, who made a brief balcony visit, I cooked everything. Everything went great and I think the workers appreciated it. I said thank you to Dr. Ishmail but was sorry that Dr. Mohamed was no there for me to thank also.
Then I took the ride into Cairo to go back to the home of Dr. Elghobashy and family. Once there I spent the last few hours of the day taking full advantage of the Elghobahys’ all you can eat high speed internet.