One more week!
I only have one more week of training and then I will out in the bush! I can't wait. Today I harvested the pond that I have been maintaining for the past nine weeks in training. My pond had the highest yield among the trainees. I harvested 18 kilograms of fish from my 150 meter square pond. This probably means nothing to all of you, so I will put it in other terms. One kilogram of fish from my pond fed me and my host stay family of six with plenty of fish left to spare. We were selling the fish at 10,000 kwacha per kilogram (about $2 per kilo). That means that a farmer would have made over $35 from my pond's harvest. The average farmer in Zambia probably makes about $500 to $700 per year. You can see how this harvest would have been a pretty lucrative day for him. Not to mention the nutritional value of the fish during the driest part of the year in Zambia when food is most scarce. I am a believer in fish farming. Who's with me?
We are scheduled to swear in as volunteers on Friday and the ceremony will be broadcasted live on the Zambia National Broadcasting Channel. Just in case any of you can pick it up on satellite. All I have to do between now and then is pass a fish species identification test, pass a technical exam, and have a 30 minute, taped conversation in Bemba. Not a problem as I see it.
It looks like I will be posted on Thanksgiving Day, which is nice of Peace Corps. It's ok though, because I think that me and some other volunteers are getting together a few weeks later to celebrate Thanksgiving in the village. That's all for now, but the next time I blog I should be a full fledged Peace Corps volunteer.
posted by Devin Smyth @ 5:35 AM
5 Comments:
...and I say it again, I am SOOOO proud of you! Love from (one of) your biggest fans, JoMaMa
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Excellent updating Smyth! Thanks for keeping us posted on how you're doing. So, you're eating fish now these days?
Of course your pond had the highest yield, I bet none of the other volunteers went through an extensive 25 year training program at Mammoth! Plus you learned techniques not know by the common man, like how to chum.
nnnnnrrrrrrrroooooowwwwwwwww
I definitely support the chumming theory. There was probably only one guy that got up at 4:00 in the morning while everyone was sleeping. When they all arose, for some reason, half of your fish were big-ass bass and couldn't actually be measured or verified. And by the way, none of the fish that you raise and catch count towards your totals at Mammoth or Lake Hardcore.
P.S. I sent you a breakfast burrito in the mail but I am not sure that you will have a microwave or Tapatio sauce.
NNRRROROOWOWOWOWOWOWO
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