I wrote to Jose` a couple of weeks ago through an organic farming network in the hope to spend some time living and working on his tilapia farm. I finally heard from him when in Mexico City and I was still keen so I spent two days riding north west, partly in the direction I came from and finally arrived at El Mentidero, a small village a couple of hours from the Pacific in the region of Jalisco. I’ve been here about a week and a half, enjoying it for the most part once I get over my first world irritations. It's nice to get back to using a pick and shovel and sweating it out in the humid mornings. I hope to stay for a little while longer.
It took some time to forge relationships with the motley crew of people working here, they speak quite fast and shorten their words a lot more than I’ve been used to but I’ve slowly caught up to understanding their speech and way of working. The farm contains seventeen in ground and above ground tanks, some outdoors and some enclosed with a shadecloth. The farm grows two types of tilapia fish to around 250-330g, selling them live or cleaned or offering them fried, grilled or roasted through the restaurant at the roadside. The tilapia is a common freshwater fish, originally from Africa and is as intensely farmed globally as salmon and trout.
I’m staying in the ant and mosquito infested cabaña above the restaurant and confined to the farm most of the time until I get cabin fever and wander off to the village to fetch a couple of beers and a packet of corn chips. I offer my labour and in return am given a bed, a few meals, endless mangoes and an opportunity to learn how a fish farm operates. I’ve got myself involved in most aspects of the day to day management of the fish tanks and general upkeep of the farm. There’s seven of us here most of the time and we share in the daily tasks. Dores and Lillia run the restaurant, the fish sales and cook all the meals. They vary from fish soup, fried fish, chicken soup, beef & vegetables or rice, beans and egg dishes.
Two of Dores’ children live on the farm, two year old Yolei who is much of the life of the farm, always running getting her hands dirty, torturing the kitten by day and chasing the frogs by night and Machete Miguel who loves blaring pop music very loud.
Mario is Jose’s right hand man who manages the tanks and is a wealth of knowledge on fish and Mexico for me and Guillermo is a jolly old man who works the mornings and wanders around doing odd jobs, fixing tools and cracking jokes.
The fish need to be fed three times daily, at 12pm, 2pm and 4pm. We need to keep a close eye on how hungary they appear so as not to over feed them. When the sun is glaring or during or after heavy rain, they tend to eat less or not at all. The fish tanks need to be partly purged twice daily to clean them out and to compensate, clean water constantly trickles in to the tanks. You’d be surprised how much a fish shits and how intense the water colour can get when drained. There’s no taps or valves to release water, just a simple upright pipe high enough to withstand the water pressure that needs to be lifted to release sewerage then connected back. The first few times were not easy to do this without getting myself sprayed and covered in green slime.
We also choose a different tank everyday to cast a net and measure the weight of the fish and Mario monitors their progress. Once they are large enough, they’re moved to the tanks by the restaurant so people can choose or catch by net their purchase or meal. The fish are sold at 50 pesos/kg live ($4.50/kg), the equivalent for a meal of two fish cooked either way with a side of tortillas and salsa and slightly more if knocked to the head, scaled with a set of rusted nails on a wooden block and gutted to take away. That’s the general cycle of the business.
Young families tend to come through on their way home for lunch or at dusk after working the fields for their meal at home. Wealthier groups of friends tend to dine in over a few Coronas. To keep myself occupied, there’s always plants to be planted, leaves to be racked, garden beds to be fixed, trenches to be dug. I spent a day with Guillermo and Mario damming the canal nearby with a heap of soil filled bags to allow more water to flow to the farm. No big deal, all the passers by just glanced and turned the other way. Today we dug out some piers by hand and will be welding recycled steel together over the next few days to form a new structure. In spare time I read or go mango picking with Miguel who swings through the branches whilst I catch the mangoes that fall down, or let Yolei amuse me.
