Saturday, July 19, 2008

Family Fun

Day 54 July 14 – Family Fun

Tim woke me up early this morning so I could see Dr. Waheed show how they perform natural catfish spawning. Dr. Waheed told us that the important factors of natural catfish spawning were water level, population density, and temperature. I was surprised to hear that the male to female ratio is 1:1.

The first step was to set up a net in a concrete tank which made a pen about 1 cubic meter in size. Then we picked out eight fish; four male and four female. We checked the color of the eggs but getting the right color didn’t seem vital. We then put the fish into the net. The water was about a foot and a half deep, warm, and clean. Putting the eight fish into such a small area made the population density slightly higher than what I have seen in normal ponds.

While I recognize that natural spawning is simple I think overall artificial spawning is better. Artificial spawning has much higher fertilization rates and a greater degree of control. Artificial spawning does require much more training but I believe the benefits greatly outweigh the costs.

Around 6pm Tim and I were sitting around watching the movie “Wanted” when the doorbell rang. Outside we found Dr. Gamal and his 18 year old son. Dr. Gamal introduced his son to us and after some chit-chat he left. After a slightly awkward goodbye I was left with the suspicion that Dr. Gamal wanted his son to stay with us. This was not at all clear but I asked Tim if he thought the same thing, he confirmed my suspicion. We agreed that Dr. Gamal meant us to hang out with his son so we headed out to find him playing soccer with his little brother. He seemed very relieved when he saw us and asked us to play with him.

Dr. Gamal’s oldest son is named Mohamed and his younger son is named Akmed. We played soccer for a few hours, surprisingly we were evenly matched. We talked about what Mohamed was going to do in his first year of college, he spoke excellent English. After a few hours Dr. Gamal and his small daughter came and joined in the game. We all quickly got exhausted while playing a full speed game in the Egyptian sun. Soon we all headed back to our rooms for cold showers and drinks.


No comments: