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.  

x + UCT = Δx

Thank fully not catching these 

Can the university you go to influence the person you are.... 
One of my crab colleagues is passionately anti-UCT (she's a UWC graduate). She says that UCT students think they are better than everyone else, that they start to use English instead of their home languages (even when they are talking to people of the same home language).  She added that even though they were promised that if you went to UCT you would definitely get a job (news to me!) yet she knows of UCT graduates that still don't have work - so UCT isn't "all that" after all. (She did add that she was pleasantly surprised to find that I was nice despite being a UCT graduate). 

For my part, I love UCT, it's history, its reputation. I decided (in all my 17 year old naivety) to go to UCT based on its reputation of having the best marine biology research center in the country (I am not sure if this is still true and it does not belittle the awesome work that is coming out of other institutions - I was 17 what did I know! - but I do count myself lucky to have been taught and supervised by some South African marine science legends - again, my opinion). 

This got me thinking about how I have changed since my 17 year old self stared, overwhelmed, as my folks drove away from me, leaving me at Tugwell alone, wondering if I had just made the biggest mistake in my little life... (I remember this feeling very distinctly, I remember feeling small and very very alone, and desperately wanting to shout to them to come back and take me home with them).  Now it is many, MANY years later (truly it isn't polite to ask how many) and, with my days at UCT being numbered, I can't imagine being anywhere else (this is self-evident given that all of my "leave" days from crab-catching have been spent at my UCT office, other than the one that was the science expo - my defense is that there is internet here).  

So, how have I changed... well, for one thing, I am unfortunately not as thin as I was back then, which is a shame, but I like to think that I like and appreciate my body more despite this. Sadly it doesn't necessarily mean I look after it better, there are still tins of sweetcorn in my cupboard and my fridge has wine in it more often than food. It does mean that I care more about the person that I am than what I look like - which is an important improvement but more likely to do with no longer being 17 than being at UCT. 

I do remember that when I first came to Cape Town I thought Capetonians had quite strong accents (I don't mean Hout Bay Harbour accents but it was either really posh "hot potato"/English colonialist accents or lazy surfers drawl). I don't notice this anymore (now that I think about it) which possibly means I have also picked up some Capetonian in my accent (in fact, people frequently comment on my accent and I generally tell them it is a JHB slowed down to Cape Town pace - unless I have wine, then it is hot potato city in an attempt to not slur! Or maybe I just talking funny!!) 

I find it difficult to identify other changes that are from having been to UCT as opposed to no longer being 17. (Besides knowing more about penguins and fish and intertidal critters) I consider myself to be open minded and liberal - but I think that was true when I was 17, if a little less defined. I do not consider myself to be a UCT snob, despite being proud of having been at UCT (is that contradictory?)  Of course there are times, (RECENTLY) that UCT has annoyed me dreadfully, and I have been very angry with it for some of their decisions/policies. I have wondered how things would be different if I had been to other institutions (I considered Rhodes at both Honours and Masters - and was really impressed with how quickly they responded when UCT admin left us hanging until the last minute which was part of the reason I was very tempted to go there.)  I have listened to friends gush about their post graduate experiences at other institutions and seen how they have changed in subtle ways from when they were at UCT.

  

We have pretty cool lawns close by,  but not on campus really
Also,  I am not sure why lawns are so important to me... hm

I have never been to another University, so it is difficult to have an outsiders perspective (well.... there was that time up in Pretoria, but I never really integrated with the UP culture, despite appreciating their lovely lawn (that no one else seemed to wiggled their toes in) and the very convenient and cheap Oom Gert's). I would be interested to hear your perspective, particularly if you have been to other Universities in addition to UCT   

Ultimately, I guess, any where you are is going to be as awesome or awful as you make it. If I could do everything over again, I wouldn't change anything, so that must be a good thing, right... Well... I wouldn't mind being the same weight I was when I was 17! 

(How nerdy is my title??)