SoRy Mi Englash iz no Gud

Day 40 June 30 – SoRy Mi Englash iz no Gud

Before I start I actually saw a calendar and realized that today was the 30th, that means two days have disappeared from my blog. Don’t worry I’m sure your not missing anything interesting, I probably just slept the whole day and didn’t bother to write about it.
Well I found out the town I am living in is named Fayoum, it has a few restraints and a salt factory.
Today I woke to a knock on the door, room service brought me breakfast, cool! It was a very typical Egyptian breakfast. It was that round flat bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, white mystery goo, and eggs. It was ok but I would pay good money for some honey nut Cheerios and milk. I went down to wait for the car at 7:58, I came back up at 8:45 after getting bored. The car eventually came and Mr. Akmed Shariff took me to the farm he was advising that day. As usual, before we started work, we stopped for 30 minutes for tea.
Akmed told me how he is hired to come to this farm twice a week, he does everything from testing the water to changing feeding levels. As you might have guessed from the title, Mr. Shariff’s English was not great, but I am grateful he tried so hard. At the end of our work my notepad was covered in drawing used to communicate.
I found that on this farm they don’t feed the fish on Friday, the hope is the fish will better utilize any natural food present. This would save money is the short term but I am not sure that the longer growing season would make this profitable over the long term. They only run the paddle wheels during night, they rely on plankton to create oxygen during the day. Sandy bottoms are better than muddy bottoms. He told me that during the climax of summer the salinity is much higher because of increased evaporation in the watershed. Their growth/feed ratio is 1 to 1.3-1.5.
After checking all the ponds we went back to the little one room building for more tea. While there Akmed suggested I visit a city on the coast, a nice tourist destination. The conversation eventually lead to the fact that there is a sanctioned Egyptian price and a tourist price. After I made a sour face he asked what problem I had with this. I told him that I thought I was unfair that for the same services I have to pay more money. He argued that Egyptians are poor so should get a better price. We agreed to disagree.
There are some cultural differences that I have mentally classified as un-American ideas. For example: Baksheesh, a poor person believes they are entitled to your money, they deserve your money because they are poor and you are rich. In the US poor people must beg for money, they must acknowledge that they are at the givers mercy. Another is this foreigner/Egyptian price difference. If in the US there was a sign saying “Entrance Fee” Americans 5$ Mexicans 2$ Europeans 10$ Africans 3$ people would be outraged. There would be a racial discrimination lawsuit in the blink of an eye. As I said, to me, these ideas seem distinctly un-American.
I finally found a good place to eat dinner, had shrimp and tilapia. Turns out is was also a chicken farm, he invited me in to see the chickens. Realizing, as they climbed all over my shoes, that getting Avian Bird Flu would probably suck.

Once again I took my afternoon swim in the giant lake.
Ants seem to have a strange fascination with this laptop.
Ants seem to love the inside of my socks…yea not cool.
Dinner cost 34 pounds ~ 7.50$
I guess guests at Egyptian hotels don’t need toilet paper.

It’s Been A Bad Day

Day 36 June 26 – It’s Been A Bad Day

Well today was very divided, it began well but ended horribly. I left Abassa at around 6:20am and drove almost 4 hours, trough Cairo, to a new town. We drove into a large bird reserve while also contained a fish farm. The fish farm seemed normal but I was impressed that all the ponds used paddle wheels. They were not running but I was assured that they run at night. I followed around a group and was impressed by how well everyone watched the fish. They mentioned that yesterday the fish didn’t eat much food, implying a high level of ammonium, so they reduced the amount of feed for the fish tomorrow.
After a short ride we stopped to see the only waterfall in Egypt, a nice 12 foot fall. It was all artificial and worked by a pump but was still nice. I still love how everyone goes swimming fully dressed, long sleeves and long pants. Most of the women swimming were still wearing head scarves. Then again they weren’t actually swimming, they clung to inner tubes for dear life after the water got 5 feet deep. It was a horribly hot day and I really wanted to go swimming but wasn’t dressed appropriately. Well I guess I was dress socially appropriately but I had no intention of getting my nice clothes wet and dirty.
I discovered I was staying at a hotel, once again feeling bad because it was probably expensive. It is right on the beach of a massive saltwater lake, at least 5 miles wide and many more long. Winter is the tourist season and right now most of the tourist locations are abandoned. It was awkward as I sat in the 30 table cafeteria in the hotel and ate alone. Next at about 2pm I decided to go swimming, I walked down to a very secluded area so I felt fine going in just my shorts. I swam a mile or two up and down the coast seeing many people on their tubes, none more than 100 feet from the beach.
This is the point where my day turned for the worst. I headed up to the room and took a little nap, and discovered the room only has a tiny fan. After I woke up, covered in a fresh layer of mosquito bites, I came down for dinner. I was surprised to find the hotel abandoned, it was about 9pm. (no it is not too late people here eat dinner really late, lunch was at 3pm.) True, I am the only person renting a room but that should mean the service is excellent. After a while I decided to just leave and find food myself. Then I discovered every door is locked, yea what the hell? So I wander around the hotel yelling hello and Salam trying to find anyone to let me out. No luck, I’m getting really hungry now, all I have are bags of skittles. Well eventually I have to climb out a freaking window to get out. After climbing the locked security gate I walked down the road to try and find a restaurant. I found two places that looked promising but when I went in I was pretty much told they don’t serve food. One had a sign with a picture of a dinner plate with food on it.…
Eventually I came to a place where the man took me to a table and gave me a glass of water. I communicated that I wanted to eat fish, I said “Samak” he nodded and said “fish” and made a eating gesture. After sitting there for about 30 minutes I got suspicious, I walked over to investigate. After repeating the message the metaphorical light bulb lit up above his head. I thought to myself, what the hell did you think I meant with I said fish, do you think I wanted to watch them from the deck?!?! After paying far too much money for a damn glass of water and an empty table I stormed off. All that was left was the Egyptian equivalent of an Am/Pm. My dinner consisted of a little bag of Doritos, a bag of skittles, and a water bottle. So now I’m writing this in a very bad mood, oh well. Tonight I hate Egypt and just want to go home and sleep in my own air-conditioned room.

Mas Comida

Day 35 June 25 – Mas Comida

I couldn’t sleep last night, I think it has something to do with walking up late and laying around all day. I got up at 4:30am to call home, dad had said to call at 6:30pm; I guess without checking the time difference. I walked across the farm and climbed to the roof of a building. I watched the sunrise then headed back to the room. As I retuned to the room I saw a driver who was waiting for Tim. I went in to make sure he was awake, then said goodbye. He was headed off the see the pyramids.
Tim returned much faster than I expected with food, delicious food. After almost two weeks of frozen chicken, bread, and chips I was thrilled to eat something else. He got some juice, pasta, candy, and other stuff. Best of all he got me a box of skittles, SKITTLES! Too bad I am leaving tomorrow to go to a fry farm, if the food is gone when I return I may have to murder my new roommate.

Friday is my Favorite Day

Day 34 June 24 – Friday is my Favorite Day

Friday is my favorite day here in Egypt because it is the beginning of the weekend; it is my day to do absolutely nothing. I think I woke up at around 1PM then moved 20 feet and laid down in front of the TV. A while later Tim came in telling me that he locked his keys in the office…YAY an adventure. Well I was bored so I volunteered to help, got my leatherman, laptop, and headed over. First we checked the windows, not going to work. Then we tried to mess with the handle and door but also no luck. Then I hooked up to the wifi and looked up “picking locks” on youtube. 5 minutes later we had to door open, I love the internet.
I spent the rest of the day screwing around on the internet and listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on audio book. Egypt is pretty boring on the weekends when your stuck at Abassa.

Add the Blue Stuff to the Red Stuff

Day 33 June 23 – Add the Blue Stuff to the Red Stuff

Today Tim and I measured the alkalinity of his six ponds, Tim showed me how. We measured the alkalinity by the process of titration. I didn’t have an opportunity to look up what alkalinity was and how it is caused and effects fish, so comments would be helpful. We took a small water sample then added 5 drops of ethyl orange as an indicator. Then we slowly added a different chemical (sorry forgot the name) until the sample turned pink. At that point we write down the amount of mystery chemical it took to turn the sample pink. We then use a formula to find the alkalinity.
The next and final stop with the international students was a demonstration on how to feed fish. Most of it was pretty obvious but I did learn something. I saw the workers adding small amounts of water to power fry food. This causes it to sink in small chunks instead of just sitting on top of the water. Then Tim taught a short class on what he was doing at the six ponds to the rest of the international students. Before Tim could start he was interrupted by the other students getting all worked up about a water snake in one of the ponds.
I have not been impressed by the international students. Not because they don’t know very much about fish or fish farming, which is true, but because they don’t really seem to care. For example, during the floy fish tagging three of the adult women were more interested in using the shiny plastic tabs as jewelry than listening. They used to tabs as forehead decorations and added them to their earrings. They even distracted everyone else by giggling and talking during the presentation. Now I’m all for slacking off in big classes, 50 or more people. But not paying attention in a group of 8 people with the teacher right there is not cool.
The scenery was beautiful this morning; a mist was rising off the rice paddies and ponds. Because of the mist you couldn’t see the ground; you could only see the palm trees and buildings in the distance.

Ave, Morituri te Salutant!

Day 32 June 22 – Ave, Morituri te Salutant!

Well today’s big event was a post-mortem investigation of a fish, well I guess it was pre-mortem until we killed the fish. Anyway, first we examined to fish’s exterior; we looked at the gills, skin, eyes, and fins. We make sure that the eyes were not bulging out or retracted into the skull. I also looked for bloody spots on the skin, a sure sign of infection.
Next we cut a big hole in the side of fish so we could see the guts. We checked to make sure everything was the correct size and color. I also saw the little heart of the fish still beating. I was poking around when I accidentally ripped the spleen open. The spleen was full of nasty green liquid which got all over my sleeve. I asked the teacher to show me where the pituitary gland of the Tilapia was, I had only seen it in a Catfish. PETA would not have appreciated my activities over the last few days, I dissected a fish just to see what was inside, and performed minor surgery for practice. While yes, they were under anesthesia it was obvious they could still feel what was going on. Almost makes me feel bad for them. Then again, their sole purpose to exist is to die so I can eat them.
After taking a group picture with the other students from the international group I worked with Tim. We walked out to the six ponds Tim is using to experiment with different stocking densities of Tilapia. Periodically throughout the week he measures pH, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, nitrite, alkalinity, temperature, hardness, phosphorus, ammonium, and mortalities. Today we measured dissolved oxygen and temperature levels of the six ponds.
Dad told me a while ago that algae in the ocean is a major contributor to the creation of global oxygen. I also learned in my marine bio class that while algae is found in every ocean around the world, sometimes it is very densely concentrated. This is known as an algae bloom. When the conditions are just right there can be an explosion of algae growth; this creates vast amounts of oxygen and sequesters large amounts of CO2 on the bottom of the ocean. I wanted to see this in the real world so when I noticed that a corner of a pond had turned dark green from an algae bloom I had to investigate. Most of the ponds we tested had a dissolved oxygen level of about 12 (ppm I assume), The algae bloom area had a dissolved oxygen level of 19ppm. That is a 58 percent increase in dissolved oxygen caused by the concentration of algae.
Today’s movie is Gladiator! Ave, Morituri te Salutant! I wonder if this is what the fish thought as they saw their impending death.