June 4

June 4, 2008

 

They let in unfiltered water. I hope this isn’t a problem. They figured that since we were going to kill the ‘wild fish’ with saponin anyway, it didn’t matter. The problem is that they may have let in crabs, etc. which could become a problem.

 

Currently, we are fertilizing the ponds to get a plankton bloom started. Tilapia will start being added on Friday.

 

With regards to getting the baby seabass, I’ve gotten myself into a pickle. Seller #1 expects me to buy seabass seed through him (1100 rup/each), but he is being a pain. We had agreed that I would call when I was ready to order, and he called last week (through a useless interpreter) saying the fish were ready and I needed to pay the deposit. Then he called again. I went with my translator to talk to him in person and said I didn’t know when we would be ready and got the phone number for someone at the hatchery (but they didn’t return my message). The farmer we are working with said he had a bad experience with Seller # 1. Seller #2 wants to get them for us for 1000 rup/each but I don’t want to encourage him, because he’ll be in my face until I order from him. Seller #3, a friend of the farmer, says he can get them for 2500 rup/each. Of course none of these people speak English. I still need to get / or have made / the net cages that they will be in for a month or so until they are big enough to be released into the ponds. And need to get feed – but don’t know what size to get. Why can’t life be simpler?

 

In KL, I got a couple light-weight shirts – that actually fit (yea), but they are too thin, so I needed to get an undershirt to wear with them. So I went to the big, claustrophobic, filled with aggressive vendors, semi-outdoor market - by myself - because I was too impatient to wait until someone could go with me. Plus, I wanted to conquer my fear of going in there. Parts of it are indoors, other parts have make-shift roofs, so it seems like it is indoors. The walkways are narrow and there are rows and rows of small stalls. I thought to myself, ‘kaus kaki’ is pants and one of those words by itself means shirt. (Actually ‘kaus kaki’ means socks). Unfortunately, I picked the wrong word. Bawah means under. So I told one of the vendors that I needed a “kaki bawah” and didn’t understand why he had no idea what I was talking about. I had asked for a ‘under foot.’ And actually dalam (inside) would make more sense than bawah. Turns out he spoke English, so I explained what I was looking for. He suggested outside, across the street. As I was walking past the stalls, I did find what I was looking for - inside.

 

Speaking of getting directions, when I went to some meetings, held at a college campus, I had to ask people where the building was that I needed. I asked three people, and they all gave me wrong directions. Finally while I was hanging out of the car window talking to someone, a brown van drove by and an arm stuck out motioning for me to follow them. I didn’t know who there were, but I figured I had nothing to lose by following them. They were going the same meetings and did lead me to the right place. Actually, they were headed away from the building when they found me – if they knew where they were going, why were they there? I’ve heard if you need to know something, ask three people and take an average. That doesn’t necessarily work with directions.