I got my feet wet (literally)

I finally got to start working on my project today, we cleaned out 18 aquariums and refilled them with water and placed aerators. I worked with Abraham (Pronounced e-bri-hem). Will put fry in tomorrow.

I cut the time between posts from a week to six days

Yesterday, Samir, the driver, and I drove to Isamali (the spelling is phonetic) which is one of three cities that is next to the Suez Canal. This city is very nice and has a lot of green space compared to most Egyptian cities/towns which I have been to. We then took a car ferry over the canal to the Sinai Peninsula and got to watch a container cargo ship full of 18 wheeler containers go by. The transformation from the (relatively) green area of Isamali to the desert sands of Sinai was incredible. Sinai was completely desert, and I was very surprised that there were even people trying to farm at all in this area, but there were. All the water that they used had to be pumped in. We then went to a former Israeli milatary command base which was used during one of the many wars between the 2 countries. From the top of the out post the entire Suez canal could be surveyed. On the way back to Abbassa we stopped and had lunch at a seafood restaurant. I let Samir order for me. In Egypt nearly every meal has more than one course so first we had salad which was more like salads, there were about 10 different small plates with a variety of cold salads. One of the better ones was the sourkraut (mostly because it tasted familiar I think). We then had seafood soup, which had a whole crab, and two shrimp, mussels, and other seafoood in it. It was pretty good but it felt kinda weird using my hands to eat soup because you had to open the crab and the shrimp but it is apparently normal in Egypt. Then when I was about full they brought out the main course of roasted mullet with a tomatoe paste on it and many herbs, along with shrimp in rice. I was not able to eat it all ( or really even come close). Luckily they had to go boxes and so I had a delicous lunch today. We then drove back to to Abbassa and on ethe way we brought several watermelons and they are delicous.

Sorry for the long delay in writing

Sorry for the long delay in writing. My only excuse is that until about 2 days ago there was not much to write about. The trainees for the course came to the center on Friday night, and the training began on Saturday. That morning I got breakfast from the cafeteria, which so far has consisted each morning of flat bread (essentially a pita bread) some cheese, some kind of meat (turkey, or some little sausage like things in a tomato based sauce I think), and possibly jam, cream cheese, or olives. It has all been good. Lunch is served later in the day about 3 o'clock and is the largest meal of the day. The past few days lunch has consisted of a salad, a noodle soup, a vegetable soup that is usually poured over rice, chicken cooked different ways, and beef cooked many different ways. For desert there is fresh fruit and a bottle of "Coka" as they call it.

Saturday there was a demonstration on the methods used to spawn fish and how to artificially spawn catfish fry. I also learned to test the hardness, the alkalinity, the nitrogen content, the dissolved O2 Concentration, the phosphate content, and the amount of photosynthetic materials that are present in the water.

Yesterday in the training I learned how to fertilize the ponds in order to grow the natural foods that fish eat on. I assisted in setting up a catfish predation trial which was being done by the trainees to test the effect of tilapia density on the the rate of predation by catfish. At 6:30 we also went to Abou Hammad to look around and go to the market. I walked with several of the trainees and purchased (with the help of Numa who speaks Arabic) some apricots and an assortment of sweets from a bakery.

Today I helped the trainees clean out the tanks from their trial, the fish had to be counted and weighed to determine the effect of the different treatments on the fish. This took 3 hours to do all 12 tanks. This afternoon we learned how to do proximate analysis of protein, fiber, ash, fat, and carbohydrates. This was really interesting and I am sure that it will be useful in the future in college. We also learned how to determine the sex of small fry under the microscope. Today I also spoke with Dr. Gamal and we decided that my project would be determining differences between the commericial varieties of tilapia and the tilapias that have been selected for in the genetics program here at the center. I will be feeding each type of tilapia fry at three different rates (based on total biomass) and checking the affect of the different rates on the two different varieties.

Thats an account of the past few days from here. Other than that I am really starting to miss home, I miss hanging out with everyone and I miss my family.

Will

Fish in the Rice/Breeding/Zagazig

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

The Weekend Here/ The Great Escape

In case y'all did not know the work week in most Islamic countries in the world is apparently Sunday- Thursday and the weekend is Friday and Saturday. On most weekends I will be able to go to visit other places around the country (eg the pyramids, the Sinai Peninsula etc) however this weekend they could not go anywhere so I was left here at the center. I am the only person who speaks English at the entire center and so it has been pretty lonely here. I am so glad to be able to call and talk with people on Skype as it would be really annoying not to be able to communicate with anyone for a whole weekend. Unforntuanatlyey though the wireless internet is not working othe laptop so I am stuck to the desktop in my office which is about 100 meters away from my apartment. This computer is very very slow and is kinda annoying but its better than nothing at all.

Thrusday night I tried to use the internet in the apartment but it did not work so I came over to the office to talk to friends on skype. I came in to the office around 5:30 or 6 ish I guess. After surfing the web for a while and talking to Eylssa G. and my Dad I unplugged my laptop and rolled up the power cord, locked my office door and proceeded to walk down the hallway to the door. When I got to the door and pulled to open it I found that it was locked. I went back to another door and found that it too was also locked. The key that I have only unlocks the door to my office so I soon found out so I thought I was in a real pickle. Then however I remembered the old addage " when God shuts a door, he opens a window" and I began to look around. I soon realized after going up and down the hall a few times looking for a big enough that could be open that there were windows right next to the door that I had been trying to get out of that could be unlocked. I opened one and successfully (and gracefully Ha!) got my big body over the ledge and outside. I closed the window, ensuring that I could get back in if I needed and went and made some rice and chicken for dinner.

Yesterday morning I woke up around 11:30 am which is weird for me, I guess I was more tired than I thought. I went for a walk around the perimeter of the center and that took me a while I met several of the secruity guards while on my way however none of them spoke english. I think one of them had his children with him because there were two little girls running around near him. I then came back to the apartment and had lunch. The i went over to the center and got back inside through the window and played a lot of spider solitaire, checked my email and got on facebook while listening to the Infomaniacs online and then Neal Boortz and then Dave Ramesy for an hour or so.

Today I got up around 9:30 and came to the center and weighed out the feed to feed some fish that Ahmed asked me to feed. I feed them and used the net to clean out the dead bugs as much as possible. The I came to the office and checked my emails and facebook and stuff like that and then went back to the apartment for a lunch of a hamburger with some grilled onions katchup and musturd on a toasted over natural gas bun and some cucumber. It was delicous. I came back to the center and then fed the fish again. Then I read about 75 pages of T.V.R. Pillay's Aquaculture Princeples and Practices, which gives a basic knowledge of aquaculture. I fed the fish for a final time and then came in here and after llistening to the Daily Breakfast with Fr. Roderick (a very funny podcast) and some of the Dave Ramsey show I have typed this post.

The weather has been pretty good here I mean its hot but really kinda dry so its not that bad.

Will Rooney

Well I have been here three days now and I guess I am finally starting to get the time difference figured out. I now fall asleep around 12:00 am local time and wake up around 7:50 am local time. On Monday Mr. Samir took me around to all the researchers and introduced me to them. The first one who I met was Dr. Gamal who is the Research Co-ordinator here and we talked for about an hour about various things. He told me that I would be surveying the different departments first and then would get to some research of my own. After meeting with Dr. Gamal I met Mr. Tawfik who is the Business and finance administrator here he was very nice and we talked for a while. He shared that he was Catholic and told Mr. Samir where to find English Catholic churches so I will get to go to Church on Sundays hopefully from now on. Mr. Samir then introduced me to about a million other people who I really need to learn the names of but have not yet. He also showed me my office and gave me a key. The office is a a 10 by 12 completely white room that has wooden desk in it with an old compaq computer on top of it that runs XP pretty well. I also got to go to the Library and was invited to take whichever books I liked from it to read. I grabbed a few on basic aquaculture and a Scientific America magazine to read. I then went back to the apartment because Samir told me there was nothing I needed to do.

When I went back over there I had some lunch and then sat down to watch a movie on the computer, the lights kept flickering on and off throughout the afternoon and I figured that this would go on for a while and then it would stop. However around 8:15 pm right as it was actually getting darkish here the electricity went completely out. This really would not have bothered me excepted that I had food in the refrigerator that needed to be kept cool. So I first looked for the circuit breaker box and eventually found one but everything was fine so I went around the campus looking for a worker or a security guard to ask to help but the security desk on campus was empty so I called Mr. Samir. He told me that he would call the people to fix it and he did, and then he called me back and told me the security guards were going to come pick me up and take me to a place with electricity. When the man came he did not speak English whatsoever and I had to show him what was wrong and rode on the back of his motorcycle to the guard station which ended up being in the opposite direction than I was looking. I then sat down and began reading Huck Finn on my iPhone and the guard taught me several new words in Arabic. These are phonetic spellings obviously but ``Mea mea'' means good and ''mous'' means mosquito. After a while the mosquitoes got pretty bad out there and the guards decided that I should move to an inside room. I moved there and then continued to read for a while until he came back to get me and the electricity was fixed. It was interesting have to try and communicate with someone who does not speak your language and hand gestures really came in handy.

Yesterday morning the power went out again and now I cannot use the air conditioning in the apartment. Luckily though its has remained pretty cool in the apartment. Yesterday I also got to choose where I wanted to go on the weekends and I choose: Giza, St. Catherine's, the tip of the Sinai peninsula, Alexandria, and a couple other places around to go to.

It still gets lonely here in the evnings when everyone leaves and I get especially lonely around mealtimes when I have to cook and and clean for myself. I miss having two little brothers running around me and I miss getting to do things to help them out. I just miss home and I know it will get better but right now for most of the hours I am awake I am alone, and that has just never been the case before in my life and its going to take some getting used to.

Will

Well I am finally here. I left houston at 5:00 pm Friday because the plane was late which caused me to miss my plane to Cairo from Heathrow at 9:15 am London time. So I had to get on a plane at 3:00 pm London time which put me in Cairo at 10:30 local time. When I got to Cairo I had to go through health screening cameras to make sure I was not running a fever and fill out a health card in order to enter the country. After that i was met by a man whom I mistook for Mr. Samir who actually was just a driver for the WorldFish Center, and he helped me get through passport control. and into the main area where I actually met Mr. Samir. We then loaded up into the car and drove from the airport to (much to my surprise) a grocery store where Mr. Samir helped me to purchase about a weeks worth of food for myself. This grocery store was nuts for 11:30 at night and there were tons of people still shopping. Mr. Samir then bought me dinner at McDonalds of all places and we drove the 1 hour drive to Abbassa and to the WorldFish Center. I took a shower and then went to bed and slept until about 1:30 pm local time when I was awakened by a phone call from Dr. Gamal he asked how I was doing and if I needed anything and said that he would take me around the center tomorrow because many people were gone today so I have esentially just uunpacked my clothes, I took a walk around the campus, and have been watching the star trek movies today. My apartment is very nice and well furnished and has internet Wifi obvously.

Last night I realized that I was very alone here right now because I know essentially no one, and I was a little homesick I guess. I think that once I begin to get to know people and start actually working that this will go away, but I miss every one at home a lot right now.

Will