Globetrotting in Claremont*

Oribi Gorge - KZN

I have had itchy feet for a while (metaphorically - I literally have had itchy hands since Monday when I volunteered at SANCCOB, it would be tragic if I was allergic to penguins, but I suspect it is more likely the cleaning product they use**) but with no funding for the last two years I spent more time in one place (my home, in Claremont, funnily enough) than I have in a number of years. There was one year during my PhD that I took 13 flights - I almost wish that I hadn't counted them until after the 13th flight, but obviously (by virtue of me writing this) despite a superstitious moment, the 13th flight was still fine. During the early years I had calculated that I hadn't been in more than one place for more than 3 consecutive months.  

Dullstroom - Mpumalanga

Crazy to think of now, since I haven't left town since a sponsored (I have UNBELIEVABLY awesome friends) trip to KwaZulu-Natal in February and a sponsored trip to JHB and Dullstroom in May and am looking forward to a KZN Christmas (I have UNBELIEVABLY awesome family too).

OK, OK, so when put like that, it's not actually all that bad... And I have actually been really spoilt. For ten years (2002 - 2012) I tried to go to a new country every year - and almost succeeded, but was too busy having fun in my own country during the 2010 World Cup to go somewhere else. 

And now, having not stamped my passport for the last couple of years, I have found another way to "globe trot" and all from convenience of my own home. In 2012 I signed up for this AWESOME adventure by joining the "Couchsurfing"community. And while I have only actually surfed on other people's couches twice (both times in Oslo, Norway, and the second time it was actually a spare bed) I have hosted many lovely people on my couch. 

This is stolen from the couch surfing website. 

OK, so when I mention couch surfing to people they are frequently surprised that I willing let a stranger into my house. Because I was away so often in the earlier part of my PhD, if someone was visiting the department and needed a place to stay, I would let them stay at mine. It wasn't a big leap from "an academic in the department" to "random foreigner" but what really got me hooked was my trip to Norway. 

Sharing my favourite place with couch surfers

I was only there for three nights, and I was searching online for a hotel or hostel that was centrally placed and reasonable. Only while I was searching, I realised that I know NOTHING about Oslo, and have no idea where "centrally placed" is. I didn't want to stay in a backpackers with drunk Eurotripping 20 year olds and I was worried that if I stayed in a hotel I would wuss out of exploring and spend the evenings alone feeling like I was missing out. Couch surfing to the rescue, and I couldn't have had a better experience. 

My two hosts were so kind, generous (they bought me wine) and accommodating, they showed me around the city and we went to a rock concert (Norwegian band - The Carburetors - that would never in a million years have happened if I had been alone) and picnicked on the grass during the air-force display. This would just never have happened if I had been alone in the city. My host even gave me a lift to the airport at 3am! More than that, I made friends, with two Norwegians that I would have been unlikely to meet in any other way. That's pretty amazing. 

After my private tour of the Italian navy vessel... 

So, obviously, I decided to pay the kindness that these two awesome humans had shown me forward. To be honest though, it is something I really enjoy doing. I love getting to meet people from all over the world and hearing their stories. I marvel at some of the adventures they have which inspire me to have some of my own. I am taken out of my comfort zone and end up partying until 4am (after thesis was finished) on Halloween. I am reminded how beautiful Cape Town is while I see people appreciate it for the very first time. I have an excuse to visit the wine farms and cheesy tourist spots. I get supper made for me by a Frenchman and a cake made by a Brazilian, sung to by an Argentian and had dinner with three members of the Italian Navy. I am constantly reminded about how many nice, interesting people there are in the world. (And they say nice things about me on my profile.) 

I am hoping this is anonymous enough to go on the web?

It does get a bit exhausting (all that socialising) so I don't host when I am super busy with work (i.e. a large part of the last two years). And, I am not going to lie, some of the couch surfers have been easier than others. There are some that have come and gone and others that I am still in touch with (or pretend to be in touch with by being Facebook friends) and consider friends. Recently I have had the absolute pleasure to meet up with my Norwegian host in Cape Town and hopefully repay him a little for the kindness he showed me in Oslo (and score with a private tour by one of the owners at Delheim because he was renting their air b'nb). I have also had a repeat visit from a German couch surfer friend. 

There is also the option of just meeting people that are new to the country or staying in a hotel but wanting to meet locals (I got to see inside my first 5* hotel because of this). It is also interesting to meet people from completely different backgrounds and cultures and aren't studying biology, or don't automatically believe that eating shark-fin soup and whale meat is bad (this was a difficult conversation for me to have, but I think it is an important reminder that people have different beliefs and values and that's OK - although not if they are eating sharks and whales...)  It is also interesting to see what people find weird about South Africa and their perspective on penguins (crazy frenchman said squirrels were cooler than penguins? HUH!) car guards, four-way stops, crime, the use of the term "robot" and affirmative action (yes, there are serious discussions in between the wine sipping).

So, if you are feeling a little isolated from the world during your PhD.... Give it a try.... you never know what it is going to be like, or what the next adventure will be... 

(IF I had known that this would be the topic of my blog today I would have made an effort to figure out the number of surfers I have had and where they were all from. I didn't. So, off the top of my head, I have met up with or hosted people from: Puerto Rico, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, USA, France, Singapore, India, Netherlands, England, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland... but I am possibly missing some.) 

* Again, not my title but a comment a friend made that I have stolen!
** OOOO just realised that you might think that SANCCOB isn't a good place to volunteer, it is!!! The staff at SANCCOB work so hard trying to get every single penguin they can back in to the wild which is so important given how much the penguin population is struggling! SANCCOB is awesome!!! And so are penguins! I just have silly skin!

Damsel in distress

There are times in the life of a PhD student, when things go wrong. Small things, big things, things that would normally be small but feel big because you are so stressed out or you don't have the money to sort them out like normal people would. Very often, my friends and family have made the difference between something being just annoying instead of being unmanageable. Unfortunately, there are times, when your friends and family aren't there to help. 

I want to tell you a story about a complete stranger rescuing a damsel in distress... me (of course, although I am not sure what it takes to be a "damsel")... 

On Sunday, I took a couple of friends to Stellenbosch for a truly lovely day in the winelands. On the way there, about 20 m from the farm, my car started to beep a warning. This meant, that despite a really lovely afternoon, in the back of my head was a constant worry about whether my car was going to give problems on the way home. I want to say that I love my car. It has actually been a very reliable little car and drove me all the way to Luderitz and back. However, it is not a new car, and I have had a fair amount of experience breaking down over the years that I know what a mission it can be and I definitely had no wish to break down on the N2. 

On the way back, things were looking OK. In fact, I was beginning to think we were home free when the warning light came on. I pulled off the highway and in to the first garage I could find. This happened to be in Rosebank, at the Caltex garage on Klipfontein Road. I tried to put in water, but the radiator kept bubbling over and then we noticed that it was just leaking out from the radiator hose. 

The petrol attendant (that I don't know at all, because this isn't one of my usual garages) was so helpful, and was on his knees under the car looking to see if we could spot the hole. We decided to wait for the car to cool down, and I went to see if some friends (with general practical know-how) that I know in the neighbourhood were home, but unfortunately they were not. 

When I got back, the petrol attendant (who's name, in all the panic and confusion, I never actually got because I was all distracted about being stressed - I feel like a real tool now for not asking) came over again to see if he could help me. He also enlisted the help of another man that he knew. We bought some insulation tape, and for the next hour (at least), these two heroic strangers patched up my car. Occasionally they let me pretend to be helpful and hold the cellphone torch for them, but mostly I chatted to the man's children (in rudimentary Afrikaans) and showed them how to use my wind up torch (which was much less help at providing light than the petrol attendant's phone) and the second man's wife (Charmaine) who called me ma'am even though I was just some silly girl with a broken car (I told her not to and introduced myself). 

Eventually, we were able to get water to stay in the pipes and the declared me able to drive home (straight home, no detours - I was instructed!) Unfortunately, I had spent my last cash on the insulation tape, and had nothing to thank these two heroes with. I obviously gave the kids the torch, but was feeling like a bit of a fool, when the petrol attendant subtly slipped a R50 note in to my hand and told me not to say anything but give it to the other man. 

I went to get money to pay back the petrol attendant, and when I came back to give it to him, he wouldn't take it. He told me that money is not important to him, people are and he knows what it is like to be stuck on the side of the road. We chatted a little, and he was an amazing, sincerely kind man. I eventually just shoved the money on to him and kind of skipped away with many more thank yous. It was very humbling to be shown such generosity of spirit from someone that many people won't even notice when they fill up with petrol and hand over their small change. Hopefully, if you read this, you will feel inspired to do something nice for a stranger... 

Never ending story

stolen off Facebook

The internet is amazing, and it turns out that I can see where the people that have looked at my blog posts have linked to the site from. (That was a poorly constructed thought, but I am running on adrenaline (I didn't sleep very well last night, 1 am seemed the perfect time to fix the font size of my page numbers) and carrot cake...) Mostly, the people that view my blog are my Facebook friends. So, that means that most of you have seen that I have handed in the FINAL copy of my thesis, but I am going to blog about it anyway. I promise that I will stop expecting you to be happy for me soon... but there is still graduation to come. 

I think some of it makes quite
pretty wrapping paper...

This is now the third time, so I am beginning to feel like a local in the DDB  (doctoral degrees board), and a little bit responsible for the deforestation in Brazil. (Although, if you receive a gift from me in the next couple of months, you can expect it to be wrapped in previous editions of my thesis.) After the tears and general sense of relief and weak knees when I got the result, this moment is some what of an anticlimax... Even though it is the end of something, I now have to try get the thing published so I need to start rewriting it - again. And of course, the dark cloud in the corner of my vision: the "what next" question needs to be dealt with. But when I left the DDB I decided that at very least I had to get a cake. 

It is, after all, important to celebrate everything. I mentioned this in one of my very early blogs, it doesn't have to be "the final hand-in" that you celebrate, it should be every small triumph along the way. Life is short and you don't need an excuse to drink champagne or eat cake. So, I am going to take the rest of the day off - COMPLETELY and enjoy the moment, but first, I have a mug to smash on Jammie steps... 

So long and thanks for all the... crabs... *

It was NOT always this sunny

Working in Hout Bay, the problems, (pollution, dog-fighting, poverty, poor-education, poaching, drugs, racism, over-fishing, violence... alien crabs) can make you feel overwhelmed but there is also so much kindness, people watching out for us and our equipment, smiles and friendly greetings, little girls who pick up litter and little boys who want to know everything about the crabs and minions who clap for you when you are awarded the PhD (at long last!)  

The dodgier side of Hout Bay. Not many tourists here, unless
they have just come from Snoekies. This is also where we had
the children visit us. 

As with everything, there were good and bad things about working in Hout Bay. For instance, I felt like I was being paid to read a fair chunk of the time, but I also had to do HOURS of unpaid overtime data capturing. I had to work in rain, crazy-wind, fog and cold, but that made me appreciate the soft sunshine even more. (Some of the days were ridiculously hot - and I have the bad tan lines to prove it.) I saw a tiny slip of a boy (about 6 - but I am bad at judging ages) tell a little girl that he was going to "put a foot through her face" (oooo I almost chucked him in the sea, but he was a slippery little thing which is probably a good thing) but I also saw a little girl teetering on the edge of the wharf trying to pick up a cigarette butt because: "the ocean is too beautiful to pollute, what about the sea animals?" and (just so you don't think it is a boy/girl difference) there was a little boy that would run across the parking lot to give me hugs when he caught sight of me.  

I loved the little blue, red and white boats, the way that water reflected off hulls in an infinite dance, the awesome shy sharks and unexpected beauty and variety of common klipvis. I loved that people that I would never normally even have the opportunity to engage with would stop and chat to me about the weather, the state of the oceans, the current crab catch totals. I loved learning not only about bycatch in the long-line and purse seine fisheries but about the different South African cultures' funeral and wedding practices. It was interesting to see how people perceived my culture, or UCT and what life was like outside the sheltered ivory tower.  

"No SPITING".... seriously, none of that! 

I didn't not love seeing little puppies and wondering if they are going to grow up to fight other little puppies. I didn't love see trolleys of dead sharks - freshly caught. I didn't like hearing (over and over) how the best thing for fisheries would be to kill the seals. I didn't like seeing so many seals with strings caught around their bodies, digging into their skins. I despaired over the amount of litter, oil and diesel (and unidentified effluents) floating on the surface of the water, and was particularly frustrated because of the 20-30 EPWP staff that were SUPPOSED to be cleaning up the litter in the harbour but mostly did nothing (once I saw them playing jump rope which can't be called "nothing" but definitely isn't working). I was frustrated by one of my nice, sweet minions saying he didn't want to do one of the jobs because it was "women's work" (Incidentally, he also said that it was impossible to be happy single and you can't make the world a better place. The only way your worth is determined is by how many grandchildren you have when you die.) 

There are things I will definitely miss about working in Hout Bay (including the minions), but I am pretty excited about clean clothes (and being able to wear skirts) and getting my car cleaned (this I am excited about in theory... I haven't actually done it yet.) I am ridiculously excited about seeing friends at work and having people to chat to because it can be a little lonely being the person that has to moan at everyone else when they don't do their work. I love that I can still use my BEAUTIFUL UCT office and have access to internet again.  I am pretty excited about doing work that requires my brain and does not require me to tell anyone else what to do. I am not going to miss killing crabs (but of course I will miss cuddling shy sharks and the baby crabs).

Next time, I visit I will be a "tourist", I wonder if the locals
will recognise me.... 

Hout Bay harbour, for all its problems, is a really beautiful place to be and I am grateful that I got to see a side of it that not many do, and, for a little while at least, get to be a part of the Hout Bay harbour community (without picking up the nasty catch phrases). Although, from now on, I will not respond to "miss crab", "crab lady" or any other crab-related jokes... 

So.... so long and thanks for all (28'000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) crabs, indeed....*

*A friend of mine (+Monica Lewis) suggested this line, apologies to Douglas Adams.