The Guppy Farm

I suppose this all started in early June when I purchased a guppy to live in the water tank of my bathroom. Something needed to be done about the mosquito larvae living and breeding in my bathroom, and I was considering several options about how to get rid of them. Larvacide was supposedly easy to get from the health clinic, but getting the right amount in the water tank was tricky business. Too much was dangerous to one’s health, and too little was ineffective. Putting some netting over the tank to prevent bugs from getting in and out was another thing I could have done, but it would have been really hard to keep it from tearing. Luckily, a PCV in the neighboring Pourk district told me that he found a place that sold guppies. I had read that guppies could be kept in water storage tanks to eat the mosquito larvae that breeds in them, so I went to Pourk one afternoon to purchase one.

The shop was a little ways off the national highway, and was hard to find if you did not know what you were looking for. When I finally found it, I met the owner just as he was finishing lunch. I explained that I looking to purchase a guppy, and he smiled as he told me to wait a few minutes while he finished lunch. He was a rather charming man, with large eyes and a propensity to laugh in a way that seemed almost crazy. His dialect was also rather strange, and I maybe understood half of what he told me. When he finished eating, when we went behind his house into the interior of his shop. The entire place was filled with ceramic water containers, potted plants, vines, makeshift ponds, and glass tanks. He kept over a dozen kinds of fish there, and I watched him as he went around and tended to each of them. Finally he asked what fish I wanted to buy, and I picked out one that was inside an empty glass bottle. After I paid, I said goodbye and jumped in a taxi to go back to Angkor Chum.



When I returned home, I started asking around if anybody knew about the benefits of having a fish live in their water containers. Not surprisingly, very few people knew about them. Then one day as I was puttering around the town, I came up with a brilliant idea for a project. I could start a guppy farm at school! Students would be placed in charge of taking care of the fish, and everyone would learn about the dangers of mosquito born illnesses such as Dengue Fever, Malaria, Japanese Encephalitis, and a whole range of others that are just simply awful. We could then sell the guppies we raise, and distribute them to people in the town. Brilliant!

To do this, however, I need help getting water storage containers to raise the fish in. I pitched the idea to the staff of an agricultural NGO named ADRA, which had a branch office in Angkor Chum. The staff at the office told me to talk to the Siem Reap office, which in turn told me to talk to country director of the whole NGO. It was a classic case of, “Oh, you better talk to my supervisor,” all the way until I got the email address of someone who could take responsibility for a project. I promptly wrote him a very nice letter about what I wanted to do:

[To the Director of ADRA,

My name is Adrian Stover, and I am a United States Peace Corps volunteer currently living in Angkor Chum district, Siem Reap province Cambodia. I am writing to you to discuss a project I am developing at Angkor Chum High School. As part of a dengue and malaria prevention and education program, I am working on developing a “guppy farm” located on the grounds of the school. Guppies are currently being used in many parts of Cambodia to control the mosquito populations that spread malaria and dengue fever. The small fish are placed in water tanks, and eat the mosquito larvae that breed in them. This prevents many mosquitoes from maturing into adults, and reduces the amount of mosquitoes in a certain area. This practice has shown to be very effective. According to the August 2007 issue of Health Messenger magazine, “A recently completed study in Trapeang Kong commune, Kampong Speu province, found that adding a few guppy fish to water storage containers resulted in 80 per cent reduction of mosquitoes in the commune.” If this technique was applied to the community of Angkor Chum, it is possible that the same effects could happen and could cause the rate of dengue fever to go down.

What I propose to do is to procure several water storage containers, some fish food, some guppies, and start a “guppy farm” of sorts at Angkor Chum High School. The high school is an ideal location for such a project because it would allow the students to learn about the project. Selected students would be trained on how to take care of the guppies on a weekly basis, and would continue the project long after I finish my term of service. When enough guppies have bred, the school can sell them to students or community members as a way of paying for the food and making money for the school. There is also a spare bulletin board at the school that could be used to display information about the fish, the project, and the benefits of having guppies in the water tank.

I believe that a “guppy farm” project would be a great venture between Angkor Chum High School, ADRA, and The United States Peace Corps. Thank you very much in consideration for my request. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

-Adrian Stover]

Two weeks went by, and still I heard nothing from ADRA. I was not too distraught because I was working on the World Map project at the time, which was keeping me busy. However, this NGO was one that I really wanted to work with. Through several visits to the ADRA office in Angkor Chum and Siem Reap, I finally tracked down the phone number for the country director. After a few days of trying to get him on the phone, I finally managed to speak to him about the project. He said it sounded very interesting, and said that he would talk to the staff about it.

The following week, I made an appointment to meet with someone who could take charge on the ADRA side. They agreed to donate some concrete water rings, as well as a few posters about Dengue Fever and the dangers of mosquitoes. By the end of the week, I had four concrete water containers in the area behind the school office and some large glossy posters. And so I went about setting up the guppy farm.


The way the current system works is this: There are four water rings in use. Two of them are used for breeding, and the other two are used as a nursery for the baby guppies. The breeding rings contain two female guppies and one male, which invites a snicker from even the oldest person who works at the school. (Maturity levels are non-existent here) When it looks like a female guppy is going to give birth (you can tell by the swelling in her abdomen), she is moved to another ring where she can produce the offspring. After she has given birth, she is moved back to her original ring. The danger in keeping her in the same ring as her offspring lies in the fact that she may be inclined to eat her children. (Nature can be very cruel) Without a system like this in place, the whole purpose of producing guppies would be lost. It took me a little while to figure out what was happening to the baby guppies when they disappeared, but once I figured out what was going on I put this system in place.

Once I figured how a breeding system would work, I recruited six students from one of my English classes to help care for the fish. I held a training session with them during a Thursday afternoon and made a little pamphlet about how to take care of the fish. I explained how the fish needed a bucket of fresh water everyday to replenish their oxygen supply, and we organized a schedule for a different student to do this on each day of the week. One student also volunteered to feed them twice a week.

Right now the students are completely in charge of taking care of the fish, which is exactly what I wanted. Hopefully they will teach others, and this project will continue long after I have left for America. The people at the school have been very supportive of the project, and I think the students really enjoy it. I have posters hung up on the wall near the water rings, so that people interested in learning about the fish can read about them in Khmer. I am also in the middle of building a small garden around the water rings with flowers and gravel walkways. It should be done by the end of the year.

All that’s left for us to do is to figure out how to sell the guppies to people in the community, and for how much. But so far, this is one project I have done that has been more successful than I thought it would be.

The Beginning Of The School Year Speech

This is the speech I made last week when the flood water went down enough for the students to assemble in the front yard of the school. I wrote it in English, gave it to my counterpart to translate into Khmer script, and then spent a week wrapping my tongue around it. It went pretty well, although a student in the front row fainted during the middle of it. He seemed okay afterwords when he was resting in the school office, but maybe he had not eaten for a while. It kind of threw me off for a little bit, but I recovered nicely with a joke that my Khmer accent was too strong. Anyway, here is the speech...in English.

I wish to welcome you back to school! I hope that you study hard this year and become intelligent and useful members of society. I am speaking to you today in Khmer for many reasons. First I wish to thank the students who helped create the world map last month. With their hard work, they helped to create something beautiful that the whole community can be proud of. [Hold For Applause]

I have been in Cambodia for fourteen months. I will leave to go back to America in ten months. I will not return to Cambodia for many years. I want my time in Cambodia to be productive, and I wish to help the people of Angkor Chum as much as possible. Because I have only ten months left, I ask that you help me. Study hard in your English classes, come to the events and classes that I organize, and learn from me as much as possible. Many schools in Cambodia do not have foreign English teachers. You are very lucky! Use this opportunity while you still can, and you will be rewarded with knowledge.

Perhaps you have seen the fish in the concrete rings behind the school office. These fish are part of a mosquito control program. These fish eat mosquito larvae, which live in water containers across Cambodia. If everyone had fish in their water containers in Angkor Chum, there would be fewer mosquitos and less disease like dengue fever. I ask that responsible class monitors from grades 10 and 11 help me take care of the fish. We will feed them, clean their tanks, and sell them to people to put in their water storage containers. When I leave for America, it will be their responsibility to take care of the fish. Together we can defeat the evil mosquitoes and destroy disease! [Applause]

I also ask all students to respect the fish. Do not throw your trash into their homes! Respect them as you would respect your own family.

For students who enjoy learning English, I am going to start a new class this year. It will be in the library, and it will focus on reading books. I have many books from America that I want to share with you, and reading books will help you learn English more than English for Cambodia or New Headway books. It will give you new ideas and knowledge. I once met a Cambodian doctor in Phnom Penh. He told me that he was able to become a doctor because he could read English, and he was able to read many books. If you can read many books, you may become a doctor just like him.

In November, after the water festival, I will also try to present a special Cambodian Film Festival for all students in Angkor Chum. With the help of a local NGO, I will present to you movies about Cambodia. Two will be in Khmer, and one will be in English. They will all be about Cambodia. I ask you to come and watch these movies, and discuss them.

As many of you know, I like to study Khmer. However, my Khmer is not very good and I need help learning it. Peace Corps is going to give me a test in Khmer, and I am afraid I will not pass it if I do not receive help. I am looking for a responsible student to help me learn Khmer. I will need to study written Khmer and spoken Khmer. The Peace Corps will pay a certain amount of money each month to a student, if you are responsible and a good teacher. I cannot teach English to this student during these classes, you must be a good Khmer teacher. If you are interested in becoming my teacher, please find me and tell me.

Again, I hope that you have a successful year, and I look forward to seeing you in class.

Same Same But Different

I suppose that I am due for an update, aren't I? The truth is that there is nothing really to report. The flood water has gone down enough for everyone to get to the classroom buildings, and classes have started. Mr. Nou and I are again meeting ten minutes before the start of every class to discuss what we are going to teach, and the students are learning in the same steady pace. Yesterday in 11B we discussed transportation in Cambodia: pickup-taxi, motorbike, airplane, remork, horse, bicycle, elephant, water buffalo, that sort of thing. I had the students compose a brief essay that answered the questions,"If you could visit any place in Cambodia, where would you go? How would you get there? What would you do there." A student named Sohpaul asked me if he could get to Battambang by lion. I told him this could only happen if the lion was of the flying kind. Sure enough, his essay began, "I would like to visit Battambang to visit friends. I would get there by riding a flying lion." Genius.

The monsoon rains are coming at night now, which means the rainy season will end soon. The rice has grown very high recently with all the rain, and I'm sure some farmers will have a good harvest. The main road down to the national highway has been washed out in some places, making the journey down there more arduous than before. A taxi ride to go anywhere now is similar to that of a bean being shaken around in a tin can, and guess who's the bean? The mere thought of it renders me immobile. Besides, I just received a giant collection of George Bernard Shaw plays from the floating library in Phnom Penh, and I would rather just plow through those.

Life continues on. I continue to teach and work in the school garden on Saturdays and Thursdays. I have a small project there which I will write about once I have a more complete story. I often wonder how people in America are doing at this time of year, but then I have to remind myself that they are more than likely having busy American lives doing who knows what. They cannot probably imagine that this life is far more interesting and exotic than their own. Exotic, yes, but interesting? You have to understand that when the bizarre becomes familiar, it ceases to be bizarre. For example, I am looking forward to enjoying the start of water festival in a few weeks. Surely you have a three day carnival to celebrate the changing direction of a major river in your country, don't you? But then again, your country has infrastructure. That must be terribly exciting to move around in! Trains, buses, mass transit systems, roads not clogged with cows or goats, what a wonderful image.

But then, who exactly is looking at whom?

Surviving Typhoon Ketsana

Cambodia was hit by typhoon Ketsana this week. While this sounds pretty dramatic, the most that I experienced was a lot of rain. The final two months of monsoon bring a lot of rain already to this region, and the typhoon really dropped a lot of water on an already saturated landscape. The result is flooding, and lots of it. My location in Siem Reap caught the edge of it, but Kampong Thom got the brunt of it. A volunteer told me over the phone yesterday that a tree fell on a house near her village and killed nine people. I read in the Phnom Penh Post how a man fell into a hole on the street in Siem Reap town, where they are doing a lot of repair work, and got sucked into a sewage current. He drowned, and now it is my number one fear when I walk down the street there.

When the rains started on Tuesday night, a lot of water suddenly started coming down at around eleven o’clock at night. The tin roof made a dreadful noise from the water pounding on it, and I had to put in earplugs just to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, it was still raining just as hard. No one was on the road, and I could see that my high school was severely flooded. The rain kept coming all day, which was odd. Normally, the monsoon rains come every afternoon and last for maybe an hour. This was different. The radio was dead, and I did not even know that a typhoon had hit us until my parents called me on the cellphone that night worried about the damage it was causing. When the rain was at its lightest, I rode around the main road and surveyed the damage. The rice fields were all flooded, and children were jumping into gushing streams and currents coming from bubbling culverts. The whole atmosphere rather felt like a snowstorm. People mostly stayed indoors, venturing out under raincoats and umbrellas to the market. I went myself and got soaked buying some eggs, tomatoes, onions, an apple and an orange at the market. The ladies working there seemed to be in good spirits about the turn of events, and no one I met seemed to be in an utter state of despair. I went back to my house, cooked the eggs, toasted some bread over the gas stove, and made myself a sandwich. It was certainly a day for staying inside, making tea, and reading.

The next day was supposed to be the first day of school. While classes certainly did not start, a ceremony was held at the primary school under a light drizzle. At the beginning, the students and teachers walked out and paraded down the street carrying blue and white banners. The students had to walk down past the market and back again, but the teachers and I decided to them do that on their own. We ducked into a nearby restaurant and ordered coffee. When the students came back, we assembled and listened to the district chief give a speech about student behavior, studies, and some other things of which I was vaguely aware of.

Nothing much happened for the rest of week. I came to Siem Reap today to use the Internet and get my bicycle repaired, only to find that the Siem Reap river had burst from its banks and was down flowing swiftly down most of the main streets. In some parts, the water is maybe three feet high I just talked to one of the staff at Common Grounds Café, and apparently the dam that is supposed to be holding back all the water is breaking. If it breaks completely, there could be as much as three meters of water that could come into the town. The rice fields I saw on the way in were completely inundated. I even saw from the national road a boat full of people making their across the fields to their houses. I am even drawing up plans myself to lash my laundry bins together into some kind of makeshift raft so I can visit the school office.


We'll see how this plays out.