The Tour de Fish

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.

Who’s Right When Everybodys Wrong?

Day 5 May 26 – 8.34 PM – Who’s Right When Everybodys Wrong?

So I know this is long but I'm doing this for a summer school grade.

This morning before I went to sleep at around 1AM I had a long, interesting conversation with Mrs. ElGhobashy. We discussed youths in Egypt, Islam, and Israel. Later, I left the ElGhobashy home and drove along the edge of the eastern desert and into the Nile delta to get to The World Fish Centre.
The discussion I had with Mrs. ElGhashy began when I asked her about the call to prayer being played over the loudspeaker outside. She was telling me how she doesn’t have to worry about her kids who were still out at 1AM because Egypt is so safe. She was saying that she knows that they won’t do anything bad because they are such devout Muslims. She told me how proud of her daughter she was because she never had to tell her (or ask her) to wear the scarf covering her hair and neck. The daughter even wore it in the U.S. when society did not require it.
I asked Mrs. ElGhobashy about many of the problems American youths face and discovered they practically don’t exist there. Being a Muslim nation Egypt does not have much alcohol so youth drinking and alcoholism are very small problems. Also, when asked about other drugs she could only name weed and heroine. Off the top of my head I can name nine different hard drugs. Mrs. ElGhobashy said she didn’t know anyone who did any of these drugs, even weed. While the overwhelming majority of the people that I know, my age, have does weed or drink regularly.
Mrs. ElGhobashy contributes the lack of these youth issues to their religion, family structure, and the way they live. Their religion forbids followers to drink alcohol, which in a family as devout as the ElGhobashy’s, is the final word. The family structure also greatly influences the children’s desire to follow the strait and narrow. The family is very close; they always know where each other are. A parent always stays up until both of their kids come home, so the kids could not get away with much. The way the family lives also contributes to the kids avoidance of destructive habits. Because all of the family members live in tight quarters the children would have a hard time hiding anything.
The heart of the conversation and the part that I found amazing was the views of an average Egyptian on Israel. Growing up in America I was always taught that Israel is the “good guy.” We hear Israel was attacked with rockets but never the other side of the story. We never hear of the thousands of Palestinians who lived there before the Allies gave away their land. It is foolish to believe that Israel is the perfect country, a nation that bears no part of the blame for the current situation. I am not choosing a side, only showing that we were never given all of the facts. We were never given the information to make a correct, informed decision on who is right and who is wrong.
The information that we take as fact, things we read in our history books comes into question when you get both sides of the story. For example when Mrs. ElGhobashy was explaining the history of Israel to me she mention when Egypt won the Yom Kippur war. She told me that even the Israelis admit, that nobody disputes, that Egypt won the Yom Kippur war. I, on the other hand, have never head anyone say that Israel lost the Yom Kippur war. Well, I do not believe two opposing sides can both win the same war. Each side blames the other for starting the war, but how is anyone to discover the truth when not everyone know the truth? When the Arabs and the Jews each have their own version of history how can they find any common ground? When both sides see the other as the source of the problem, agreeing on concessions would be difficult.
The realization that our version of historical facts are not seen as fact everywhere astounded me. While I know that there are always disagreements with regards to history, who won a war is a pretty major discrepancy. As seen in the lead up to the Iraq war we completely at the mercy of the story our news stations tell us. Those news stations are equally helpless to the information their governments provide them. When a government says "our satellites or out spies discovered these FACTS", we have no way to discover if those claims are false. If the Egyptian Government told the people that the Israeli army invaded their country first, how would an everyday Egyptian know if this was false? How would anyone if the Israeli army only attacked because Israeli ships were barred from passing through the Suez Canal? The truth is that we don’t know whose facts are correct. I have found it interesting to watch Al Jazeera, the dominant Arab news station. By watching the way Al Jazeera casts a negative light on Israel, I was able to see the way our news only shines a positive light on Israel.
After a few hours of sleep I rode with Dr. ElGhobashy to the World Fish Centre. To get there we drove for about an hour in a pickup truck. It took us about 20 minutes to get out the city. Then we drove along a highway for about 30 minutes through the outer edges of the city. This part of the trip was interesting because the highway is the border between the city and the desert. I’m talking about the kind of desert you see in movies, barren, sand dunes, as far as you can see. Then for the remainder of the trip we passed through the Nile delta, it was obvious when we entered the delta because it was much, much more green.
Dr. ElGhobasy then introduced me to the director of The Central Lab for Aquaculture Research Dr. Ahmed Said. The director then set up a quick tour of the hatchery. Mostly I just went around and meet people, I feel bad because I can’t keep anyone's name straight. Too many people with too weird names for me to remember.
They took me to my room and it is freaking awesome. Two bedrooms, AC, fridge, washing machine, shower, and satellite tv!! Only problem is I can’t get the damn WiFi internet to work.
Well everything seems great here, seems like I’m gonna get to do and see everything! Only problem I can see is they are acting like I am some important guest, which means I get the best people showing me around. But I feel bad because they focus on me so much they don’t really get to do their own work.




Random Stuff

Arabs believe that US news is run by Jews, that is why public opinion and news leans toward Israeli versions of news.

Meet King Ramesses

Day 4 May 25 – 11.24 PM – Meet King Ramesses

Today I went to the Egyptian National Museum, After convincing the ticket man I was a student (to get half off ticket price) I bought my 5$ ticket. I took the subway to get there, easy just like other subways in London, Paris, or D.C. The Museum was relatively small, two stories, maybe 600 meters by 300 meters, but stuff was stacked to the ceiling. Most of the stuff was not very interesting because I don’t know much Egyptian history but there were two sections that would amaze anyone.

Here is me outside of the Egyptian Museum. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed inside the building.

.....But rules like that have never stopped me before. If you turn off the flash taking a picture doesn't hurt anything.

First, the mummy section. You had to buy a special ticket costing 10$ but it was worth it. It is this small room, the only air conditioned room in the whole museum. But this one room had, I think, twelve mummified kings or

wives. The pictures, which I had to take “covertly,” speak for themselves. I mean how often do you see 3000 year old dlead kings?!? This is the most famous and powerful Egyptian King. THIS USED TO BE THE KING OF EGYPT, thats crazy! This was the king in the Book of Exodus, Moses lead the Jews from Egypt during his reign, some historians believe. Still has hair and everything!

The next stop was King Tut’s section. If my memory, and the History Channel, serve me right King Tut was a child king who died young. He was a very boring king who did not have the most impressive tomb compared to other kings. His tomb is special because it was not raided by tomb robbers because a more important King built his tomb on top of King Tut’s.

The King Tut section was amazing, gold, glass, and precious stones everywhere. Tut was buried in three coffins, each one fit in the one before it like those wood dolls. The other most coffin was made of thick, carved wood; it was about 12 long by 8 feet wide by 10 feet tall. The middle coffin was made of glass and semi precious stones held in place by gold. The innermost coffin was solid gold, surly weighing hundreds of pounds. After I left the Museum I went and wandered along the side of the Nile.

It was clear that unlike the Louvre the staff are normal police. At the Lovure the people working there seemed to really care about and know about the things they were protecting. The police at the Museum were much less enthusiastic, they were more interested in if you bought a ticket, not if you were leaning on or touching ancient objects.

Random Discoveries

Many police have AK rifles, many of them are empty

Almost no Egyptians own guns

Subways have separate mens and womens cars

Subway ticket costs 25 cents

May have to start taking that Imodium…

Atlas Shrugged is way too long

No traffic police, I have seen no police cars.

The kings were really short, like 5 foot nothin.

It’s Tougher in Egypt

Day 1 May 24 – 12.10 AM – It’s Tougher in Egypt

Have not showered for three days

Normal waking hours here are 9am to 2am, with noon nap

Friday is holy day for Muslims

Got cell phone

I was talking to Mrs. ElGhobashy about differences between to the U.S. and Egypt and the main difference that she thought of was that life was easier in America. I didn’t really understand what she meant until later that day when I went got an example. I went shopping with Mr. Hussein ElGhobashy for “pattia” and a few other things. While most of the other things were pretty easy to find the “pattia” was a problem, even though is it a very common food item. From what I could figure out “pattia” is just raw bread that does not rise, like flat bread. You fold this “pattia” over ground beef and fry it. We walked all around the neighborhood asking at every food vendor if they had “pattia,” we had to ask about eight or nine different shops before we found some. Each store is about 5 foot by 11 foot open air, hole in the wall. I thought this was interesting because I’m so used to going to a huge supermarket and buying any food item I can think of. You never go to Safeway and ask for bacon, bread, or tomato soup and have them say “No, didn’t get any this week” or “no we’ve been sold out for a week.” Mrs. ElGhobashy fell and broke her hip two months ago and now has to go up five flights of stairs to get home. There is no corner drug store, no wheelchair ramps, no crosswalks, no supermarkets; I have to agree with Mrs. ElGhobashy, it’s tougher in Cairo.

Pictures!

This is a picture from the front balcony of their 5th floor house. The men had all just finished praying under that tree, there is not enough room in the mosque. As everyone was dispersing a watermelon cart rolled up.



About half of the Egyptian men wear the one piece dress looking things and half wear button down shirts with khaki pants.

Click on the pictures to make them full screen, you can see everything much better that way.

Day 2 May 23 – 12:25 AM – Dull? No.

( I am technically writing about yesterday,it is past midnight, but this is the best time for me to write)

Well today started out dull, I woke up a few hours before everyone else and just sat around in my room reading and sweating. Nobody else in the house in using AC and I don’t want to be only one. I may start using Chris’s patented trick of putting a wet towel over yourself when you sleep.
At around noon Dr. Hussein, wife, son, and I all drove downtown. I promise this will be my last rant about the drivers here. They are all crazy; I’m amazed there are not more car crashes. Every aspect of their driving is ridiculous, the speed, the prking, the order, seriously everything. I will try and take pictures.. A few errands later and we were back home.
I went to sleep at around 7 thinking that the action was done, not so. Around 9:30 the brother and sister knock on my door asking if I want to go the mall. I assumed they were talking about tomorrow, also not so. Well around 10 the three of us get into the car and drive to the mall. The minute I got out of the house I realized Cairo in nocturnal, the place comes alive at night. People were working, walking, and eating at 10 because the temperature was so comfortable at that time. The six story mall was beautiful, lots of restaurants, movie theaters, and classy shops. I ate at KFC, next to Pizza Hut, at least it’s not just Americans were making fat with fast food. I have no idea what I am doing tomorrow.

Oh, and I asked what Dr. Hussein thought about the Iraq War. He was opposed to it, but he argued that all wars are bad and talked about the cost in lives and health, not about American Imperialism, Oil, Bush, or the motive of this specific war.

First Impressions

Day 1, May 22 – 12:20 AM First Impressions

So, a little cliché, but I just had to watch Aladdin on the flight over on the little T.V. things. The flights over went extremely well, everything went moved like clockwork. I left Tucson at 1PM on Tuesday, with Sean, to drive to Sky Harbor Phoenix. At 3:30 Sean dropped me off at the gate, I had my ticket by 4PM, then I sat around until my flight at 8:15. Yea, I know, I was really early but missing my flight would really suck. I talked the ticket lady into giving me an exit row seat for the 10 hour leg from Phoenix to London, lots of leg room and I sat next to a pretty U of A girl, does it get any better than that? A three hour layover in London and a four hour flight later, I was in Cairo, Egypt! I quickly meet the Dr. Hussein and his son who drove me to their house.
So, I have talked to a few people who have recently been to Egypt and I have consistently heard then talk about being “Baksheesh”ed. No, it is not a verb but I don’t care. It is pronounced Bach (like the composer) sheesh (like “She” and “shh” put together. Baksheesh is an Arabic word, with religious meaning, which is part Alms for the poor and a Tip. It is like in Mexico when someone jumps on your hood and starts washing your windows for you without you asking. But this is much for widespread and socially accepted. Being the pasty color that I currently am, I am a Baksheesh magnet. I was about to lift my suitcase into the trunk of the car when some random guy sneaks in and does it for me. Now I’m all for asking little old ladies if you can help carry their bags but I am 19 years old and in very good shape, I can lift my own damn bag. Well the man then follows me around the car and says “Baksheesh, Tip.” In a tone that clearly says you owe me. I have a feeling this will be an issue between me and the Egyptian public. I have no intention of tipping every person who picks up my grocery bags or opens a door for me over the next two months. I guess the part that bothers me is how it is not like the US when begging is asking for money you know you didn’t earn. Baksheesh bothers me because the person is not obviously poor, and acts like I am in debt to him for the “work” he did. I have a problem when people demand tipping for things I would do for them without ever thinking about asking for payment.
The driving… If someone did some of the stuff I saw last night to me in Tucson, you would probably see me in the news under the headline “ROADRAGE.” Driving in Cairo could best be equated to a giant go-kart ring. There are no rules, no lights, no lines, and no police. We speed down dark, narrow roads with kids playing, dogs wandering, and people walking and never slowed down. As long as you don’t hit anything I guess it is OK,. On every road there are cars parked EVERYWHERE, there are also cars parked behind those cars blocking their exit. We drove for twenty minutes at 1AM, I shudder to imagine rush hour.
The home I’m staying in is small but nice; It is on the fourth or fifth floor of a building, it is right between two other tall building so I really can’t see anything. I think I stole the sons room. I’m getting ahead of myself, Dr. Hussein also introduced me to his wife (also a Dr.) and his daughter. I didn’t get a good look at the house because I arrived so late.
Mrs. Hussein treated me to dinner when I arrived, I was bread with chopped hot dogs and peppers in sauce. (It was much better than it sounds) The first cultural difference I noticed was how the wife and daughter waited on me hand and foot. The actual description would be pretty boring but take my word for it. I said in thanks, “oh you spoil me” and she looked surprised and said “your mother doesn’t do this for you?”
Well this is my first blog entry and I know it was pretty long. Most of my future posts will be shorter with pictures. I don’t know when I will be able to post this, internet could be a problem. I will write one post a day then upload them to site when possible. Any writing style help/suggestion would be appreciated, spelling and grammatical correction will not. Uncle Chris any suggestion you have would be greatly valued.