March 2011; Changilo

I returned from Zanzibar refreshed. One would be hard pressed to visit such a wonderfully unique place without feeling inspired. Changilo in March is quite pleasant as the rain limits its presence to late afternoon showers that prevent the harshest rays of the sun from heating the Earth beyond comfort. It was time to stock the large production ponds farmers had been working to construct since last year. We choose to stock impende (red-breasted bream; Tilapia rendalli) from a Department of Fisheries (DOF) brooding site in nearby Chalata. Given a lack of support from FAO and DOF vehicles in the area despite attempts to schedule far in advance (note the FAO vehicle in the background of this picture, the driver was alternating between impressing the female technician and using his cell phone to talk to friends in Lusaka the entire time we were there. Money well spent, America?). Local farmers and I opted to schedule a series of cycling trips to ferry the fingerlings to our new ponds in Changilo. This process always began early in the morning to take advantage of cooler temperatures. Fingerlings are supposed to be purged in advance to cut down on metabolic processes in transit but this is often not done due to inadequate quality assurance measures.

The fingerlings were carefully loaded into twenty liter plastic jerry cans, filled with 16 liters of clean water, each can holding 160-180 fingerlings. The cans were tied to our bicycles with rubber straps fashioned from blown out innertubes. By 08:30 hours we began the return journey through the bush just as the sun began to get hot. The best option for this circumstance is to keep pedaling and pray for rain. If the cans get too hot, the fish will die. If the cans are jostled too much, the fish will die. If the dissolved oxygen drops low enough, the fish will die. We had an hour to cover approximately 15 kilometers of washed-out bush path to deliver our unweildy precious cargo. We arrived without incident, having paused once to add dissolved oxygen to the containers with a portable bike pump, and placed the cans in the water to allow temperatures inside and outside of the containers to equalize.

We covered the cans with wet grass to shade the plastic and waited for the temperatures to balance. Once confident that the fingerlings would not go into shock due to a rapid change of temperature, we opened the lids and allowed pond water to flow into the containers. Allowing the fish to swim out of their own accord to minimize damaging them. I demonstrated this process a couple times a week throughout the week until farmers were confident enough to do it without my assistance. Altogether we stocked upwards of 6,000 fish using bicycles this month. I cannot express the joy of the farmers and their families when they see the fish swimming around the ponds that took so long to build. And I cannot express how great it feels to be tired, muddy, and wet at the end of the day knowing that hundreds of kilos of fish will be harvested six months from now because of the work we did today.