Relax Relapse

Day 14 June 4 – Relax Relapse

Today I woke up the glorious news that Obama won the Democratic nomination….Hooah! :) Today was much like yesterday, no big operation for the day. As I played solitaire and Dr. Ishmail played Snood (great time wasting game) he asked me if I could send him a certain type of tiny worm from the us.
The way it works now at the farm is they have to buy baby shrimp, called brine shrimp to feed the tiny fry. These are expensive and Dr. Ishmail is always trying to cut costs. To get around this he wants to grow these little worms on the side of the ponds so each day he can just feed the fry (baby fish) with these worms. The worms would be much cheaper to grow than it is to buy the brine shrimp.
Using these worms is a common practice in the US (so says Dr. Ishmail) but Egyptian laws are hampering him. It is much harder to get these worms because other species of the same type of worm are toxic. So the whole group of them are controlled, but not in the US. He has tried to bring them back from the US before but was thwarted, once someone sent the wrong type, another time his daughter forgot to add water to the vial. So he asked me to try and send him some Fed Ex when I get home, which I am more than happy to do. I can’t tell you how much he has taught me and how wonderful of a host he has been.
I also came to understand another aspect of fish farming in Egypt today, crappy infrastructure. I didn’t realize this for a while but the power has been out for the last 24 hours. Now you are thinking “Patrick, how could you not notice there is no power?” well that is because the power goes out so often that Dr. Ishmail bought a generator to cover when the power is out. This is vital because in the small tanks if the fish are not given new water and given oxygen, they will die in a matter of hours. Well at around 8PM the generator failed, his backup broke. Dr. Ishmail was obviously very concerned. He had to call a mechanic and electrician at 8:30 PM to come and fix it ASAP. Fortunately it was a minor problem, corrected in a matter or minutes. But it could have been catastrophic.
Dr. Ishmail’s son Mohammad was in Alexandria till the afternoon trying (successfully) to get his son accepted to an American school in Egypt. Now I always thought that America was not known for its good education system?!? Sorry Mr. Kukla, Dr. Schulter, and Mr. Sierra you teachers are the exception….well not you Mr. Sierra ;) But then again I guess they are better than Egyptian schools, and he learns English!

The farm im staying at has a tennis court, basket ball court, squash court, and a soccer field...ive decided to stay here another week :)

I am horrified at the prospect of my stand up fan dying during a power outage, It is the only thing keeping me from being drenched in sweat in bed. It also keeps the mosquitos at bay.

Relax

Day 13 June 4 – Relax

Today was wonderful; woke up late, no plans, just relax. I finally updated the blog today, the only internet connection is a USB cell phone connection. While very convenient it is also slow.

In the afternoon I went across the street to the catfish farm and repeated the process of artificial spawning. Then we cut off their heads, dug in their brains and pulled out their pituitary gland. I think I could do the process myself now! I was also assigned the following task. After a few hours replace the acetone the pituitary glands are in, repeat after another 12 hours, then dry for 2 hours, then refrigerate

I learned about this a while ago but just realized I never talked about it. I don't know exactly, but about one in a thousand catfish are called jumpers. Jumpers are catfish that grow dramatically larger, faster than others their age. They grow so much faster than their brothers and sisters that they end up eating them. This is a problem because every fish that dies is money down the drain. So every few days they catch all the jumpers and move them to a new tank with the other jumpers, jumpers don't eat jumpers. They have to do this every few days because "jumping" is a social, not genetic, trigger. Think of it like a wolf Alpha male, if one is removed another will always take its place. So when the 1st group of jumpers are removed other begin to grow more quickly.

At sunset I took the daily tour – check of the farm with Dr. Ishmail. We checked the fish and shot at some metal fish feeders with his S&W 9mm, with the added benefit of scaring away the wild dogs that steal fish.

The catfish in my hand are the same age and have been raised in the exact same conditions.