Howdy
The work week started yesterday well, when I got to work at about 8:30 I setup my laptop and checked my email and then talked to Samir about going to the store soon, he said that we could go that night at about 6 O'clock. (This was later changed to the next day because my passport was not back to the center yet). I then headed out with Ahmed to the fry rearing tanks. We finished removing the fry from the tank that we had been taking them out of for the past few days and then moved on to another tank. In order to estimate the amount of fry that were being moved Ahmed and I counted one scoop of fry - I thought counting corn kernels was hard when I worked at TAMU Corn Lab until I got to do this; corn does not move, fry are crazy and it makes them very difficult to count. I eventually got the right strategy down of just getting a few in the scoop and moving them to the other container; if you get too many in one scoop they are impossible to count. I repeated this procedure twice with fry from different tanks. As we were counting Ahmed pointed out that the fry were not very lively today. He then told me and the crew that we would not continue moving the fry today because of this - he did not want to risk losing too many of the fish.
After that I came back into the center to get some water, and then headed out with Ahmed to take a look at the rice fields which are part of a research project to determine the best methods of using flooded rice fields as environments for aquaculture. These ponds are constructed as shown in this picture to provide a deep ring of water around the edge of the paddy to allow the fish to grow from fry stage and then when the rice is harvested the paddy will be completely over flown (more than it already is during rice production) to allow the fish more room as they grow. The rice is young right now and today was just moved out into several different paddies to grow more. After the rice paddies I went out to work with Dr. Navid ( I don't actually know how to spell his name but it sounds like this). Dr. Navid works with the genetics program here and today they were making breeding matches. To do this each fish is given an expected breeding value (ebv) based upon their weight several months ago. The fish in different families (those with different parents) are matched up by desirable characteristics to bred, (the fish with the best ebvs are matched up.)
Today I went to Zagazig with Samir to go to the stores to purchase food and supplies for the week. First we went to the store, which is run by Mohammad who is a good friend of Samir's. There I purchased chicken, fish, shrimp, beef hamburger patties, flat bread, some frozen peas and carrots, some chocolate, juice, cheese, cookies, water, dish soap, laundry detergent, beans, canned pineapple, Tang (mango and orange flavored), and several other things I have probably forgotten. We then went to a fruit vegetable stand and they had huge variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. I bought peaches, apples, plums, tomatoes, parsley, eggplant, cucumber, and onions. After this Samir took me to Momo's which he terms "an Egyptian McDonalds", but the food was definitely a grade above good old Micky D's. They have a variety of sandwiches for sale, the sandwich served on long subway style bread, and I had the beef sandwich (there was more to the name but I don't remember it). It was delicious, and the beef came off a long roast that was slow cooked and I saw the guy take the meat off the roast and put it on the sandwich. The total cost for the sandwich (which was huge), some fries, and a 12 oz - I mean 355 mL- diet Pepsi was around $3.50 which is about 20 egyptian pounds. I have noticed that food it very cheap here compared with in the US.
Speaking of the US, when people find out that I am from the USA here often the first question they ask/ or the first thing they do is ask about or shout Obama. The people over here are generally very supportive of Obama and most of them hated Bush. I have to explain often that while I recognize the fact Bush made some mistakes that I do not support Obama. It is interesting.
Will
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