BOAAAAAAAAAAAAATRACE!!

It’s been quite some time since I really posted last. I’ve now been here just short of two months, which is honestly unbelievable. It’s gone by so quickly – the semester is half over (we just got back from spring break…yes…in September), the rowing season is (nearly-we’ll get to this in a minute) over, we’ve had midterms at UCT, etcetera. Faux deep thought of the moment: the study abroad timeline is such a strange thing. Living in South Africa for a semester is actually starting to seem shorter and shorter, but on the other hand, it’s long enough to actually start to live here. I’m all settled in now; I know a good deal about how Cape Town (and UCT, for that matter), functions, I’m getting used to cooking dinner almost every night, and I’ve actually been doing a little bit of school work. Moving into the second half of the semester, I’m still very happy to be here. The more I think about it, the more I’m realizing that going abroad was an excellent decision – I needed to get away from Williams for a while. There are certainly things about being here that’ll make me appreciate the Purple Valley all the more, like having 275 people in one of my lectures, not being able to walk around after dark, and only getting to row on the weekends, but it’s so nice to be out of the Williams bubble for a little while.

In other good news, work at EPRI, which started out quite frustratingly, is looking up. I’ve been put on a pretty big project looking at social protection in Vietnam directed at children, looking specifically at multi-dimensional poverty (as opposed to traditional poverty measures like income and expenditure). For my part, I’ll be using two data sets from recent household surveys to put together a microsimulation that will target children based on a variety of characteristics and try to model the impact of social protection benefits on reducing multi-dimensional poverty. In other words, how does giving each child in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam an additional 50 cents per day affect their school attendance, their vaccinations, their diet, etc? The microsimulation will allow Vietnamese policymakers to “play God,” but it will also allow us to suggest a number of viable policy options that are specifically tailored to the needs of Vietnam’s children. It’s part of a much larger look at poverty in Vietnam that EPRI is doing, and with any luck, it’ll involve a chance to actually travel to Vietnam in November for about a week, both meeting with & explaining the model (and the resultant policy suggestions) to Vietnamese government officials, as well as having a chance to interact with Vietnamese kids and their families. With any luck, that’ll go forward, making my November insane – finals, Vietnam, parents visiting, and my second-to-last week in Africa. The other half of our EPRI projects has started too – I’ve met with one of my members of parliament, who’s working on bringing cell phones (and all the ICT opportunities they provide) to rural South Africa, and am meeting the other, looking at domestic migratory patterns, starting this week. We’re hopefully going to finish some papers that’ll eventually make their way into policy. So far, I’m a little terrified that these people are running the country – they are smart and motivated, but have very little education – the fact that they’re listening to some kids from Williams about new policy to introduce should speak for itself. Eek. Here’s hoping we do a good job.

Aaaaaand now, the exciting part of the post! ROWING! This week was the South African Universities Boatrace in Port Alfred, and not much that I can write will be able to begin to describe the experience, but I’ll give it a shot regardless.

We left on Sunday, flying to Port Elizabeth from Cape Town. Airport security is super relaxed in SA – quite a difference from the States. Port Elizabeth is a large city, with the closest useful airport to Port Alfred. From there, it’s about a two-hour drive to Port Alfred, through the Eastern Cape and mostly along the coastline. Quite a beautiful drive (see the pictures following). I’m always amazed at what South Africa looks like – it’s actually much like California, especially along the coast. Hills, with vegetation that looks a lot like what’s around Palo Alto, sand dunes on the beaches, and farmland on the inland side of the road. Another fun random fact – the highway signs, rather than being held up by metal posts, are mounted on wood. It’s a minor detail, but I actually quite like it. Anyway, we drove to PA (hah) with a small stop at a farm store with DELICIOUS fresh bread, as well as biltong and other snacks, armed with a soundtrack of dance beats and rock, having some silly rude conversation (always fun!). Upon arrival, we went to settle into our houses and rig our 8+ (Thames). We went on the water – the Kowie is quite a river, with current, wind, bridges, and sandbanks that appear and disappear with the tide.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent rowing on the river, going in the coach-boat (US: launch) with the women’s crew and sharing war stories with their coach, who rowed at the University of Washington, eating LOTS of pasta, watching more than our fair share of the Big Bang Theory, and HAIRCUTS! It’s tradition that men’s crews show up with ridiculous hair to Boatrace – we saw bright green Mohawks, among a whole host of other things. The UCT B boys bleached their hair and then shaved the backs of their heads, leaving some hair in the shape of sunglasses (which they dyed blue) and beards. Not to be outdone, my A boys bleached their whole heads, then dyed “tiger stripes” blue (some more tiger-y than usual…there was quite a bit of debate about that), and shaved bald around the stripes. Yes, it looks as silly as you’re imagining. I obviously needed to be a part of this exercise, but didn’t really feel like shaving my head…so I bleached it and cut it a little shorter (to its normal length), and then for race day put a racing stripe of blue on my head. Tuesday night was coxswain initiation, and my introduction to the Slought & Grunter – local bar…the rest of that I’ll leave up to your imagination. Pro tip: Bushman’s Balls is (are?) delicious. Jäger, not so much (sorry, Marcus!).

Thursday was a hectic day, which for me, included THREE races. First, the women’s C crew, in which I ROWED (yes, you read that right). UCT was the only school at the regatta with SIX crews – men’s and women’s A, B, and C (and two novice fours aswell). The C crew rowed in the B heads race – like I’ve written before, Boatrace starts with a heads race (“head race” in the States), and then crews are paired by their times in the heads race into finals, which are on the same course (6K for men, 4K for women – dumb, but whatever), and head to head rather than time trials. We actually did pretty well, considering that our 4K row up to the start of the race was the first time we’d ever rowed together, and for some of the crew, the first time they’d ever rowed – we put together a crew of 5 coxes, 1 rower from the University of Fort Hare, and a couple of other UCTers, including a boys’ C crew rower who came to cox us. As you might imagine, there was a lot of backseat driving going on, especially from myself and Sarah Phelp, the boys’ B cox, since we were rowing in her 8+ that she had to go race in shortly after we got off the water! He did quite a good job, though – didn’t hit any jetties or sandbanks. We arrived last to the race, having done about 7 3&10s on the way down in order to make it on time, and then turned to line up between UKZN (KwaZulu Natal – Pietermaritzburg…they say “Z” as “Zed” here, so this is pronounced you-kay-zed-en) and Fort Hare. After some waving to / cheering for the UCT B girls, we had our start – a bit scrappy, but we did quite well. We passed UKZN and were going strong for a little while until…BOATSTOPPING CRAB #1 saw us lose our lead. We got collected again, though, and continued our lightning fast (hah) race down the course. We actually nearly passed UKZN for a second time coming under the final bridge, but, alas! BOATSTOPPING CRAB #2 prevented that from happening. Sigh. Nevertheless, we beat both UKZN and Fort Hare, putting us in the 5-6 final vs. Stellenbosch (not bad for the only C crew in the event!).

After getting my hands torn up (just you wait, nonbelievers, there will be photographic evidence…ouch!), I went home for a little while and got myself mentally prepared for the men’s A race – the actual reason I went to Boatrace in the first place. I should preface this with a little background – racing with UCT isn’t much like racing for Williams. The last time UCT was in the A final was in 2001, but the club has been steadily building for the last 2 years, so the goal for this race was to make the A final. We went into the heads race thinking that Rhodes, seeded right in front of us, would be fairly quick, and we wouldn’t overtake them, but that Wits, two places ahead, might fall back.

We headed out for our warm-up to some good cheers from the B boys, and set off down the course. Despite a minor incident with a fishing boat (fine #1…), we ended up at mens’ start ready to attack the race. They called us into our rolling start, and we had a good build down the course, pushing good lines and some nice corners, slowly narrowing the gap between us & Rhodes. In the Bay of Biscay, we got close to catching up to them, and started to get contact coming around Shipwreck Corner (see map). We actually took the outside of the corner on purpose there, and overtook them coming down the next straight in order to allow us to shoot the gap on the Old Bridge (the left-hand arch is the straightest line, but it’s also much smaller than the centre, and is shaped by rocks/the wall of the channel on the left side, and the bridge pillar on the right), which put us in a position to come up on Wits. By the time we got to the finish, we had contact with Wits and had left Rhodes behind, clocking in a total time of 19:00 over the 5-6K distance, which put us into the A final with Tuks, the University of Pretoria (they’re “Tuks” because back in the day, they used to be the Transvaal University College – TUC, giving them the nickname “Tukkies”). Tuks is home to the Academy – it’s where all aspiring national team rowers go in South Africa, and their 8+ include the SA pair that won gold at worlds this year. They’re sort of like the equivalent of US Div I scholarship athletes…if they were to all be concentrated at 1 school while the rest of the universities raced Div III. They’re good guys for the most part, but generally not the fan favourites in Boatrace, since they don’t really fit as a university crew like the rest of the rowers at the regatta. Anyway, the point is that UCT making the A final is a big deal. Whoo!

Last race of the day was my novice 4+ - we raced a 1K, under the last 2 bridges, with Will from the boys B crew coxing us. This ended up somehow as a weird time trial thing? I’m not quite sure how that happened, but at the end of Thursday I’d rowed 10K and raced 5K more in one day than I ever have before. My hands were a MESS, but it was totally worth it. Again, not like racing at Williams – not nearly as serious, but I couldn’t have asked for a better group of girls to race with, and I’m incredibly glad I got the opportunity to actually row. Hopefully it’ll help me keep some perspective in my coxing.

Thursday night was a big formal dinner, with everyone in club dress listening to speeches by the various SA universities rowing officials. Not particularly exciting, but a good chance to get to hang out with some people in the club other than the A boys (who are fun, don’t get me wrong, but now I actually know more than 9 members of UCT rowing!). A part of this dinner were the war cries – a competition to win a prize of crisps, a little alcohol, and some Red Bull, to be won by giving the best chant. We used a schools (HS) song called “Bachelor Boy” and reworked it to “Ikeys Boy” (Ikeys are like the UCT nickname). It’s actually quite like a rugby song, and goes:

If I were an Ikeys boy, and if I were to marry

I would marry a rower’s (/insert your own here) daughter, more than any other

I would stroke (/insert your own), she would stroke, we would stroke together

Wake up in the morning, stroking one another…

In the morning, in the morning, in the morning by the sea (x2)!

The umpires thought we were clever, so we won! A U! A U! A UCT!

After our victory, we headed back home to get ready for Friday, which brought an awkward church service, the B girls’ finals (our race vs. Stellenbosch) and the B boys final. We got destroyed in the C girls’ race, with some icky conditions (think Onota in the rain), and had a painful row through the Bay, which was thankfully made a little bit better by the absurd appearance of a streaker running out from a house on the bank screaming, and then dodging behind a wall. The B boys pulled their own moment of nudity – I’m not sure if this is tradition for the Pelican Kroo (UCT B crew) or if it’s just them, but: after coming under the Old Bridge, they were far enough ahead that they had time to take off their trisuits (US: unis) completely, and row in naked! Upon crossing the finish line, an umpire came up to them and gave them a stern reprimand, telling them that they were in violation of uniform rules. The rules, he said, clearly state that all the members of your crew have to be wearing the same thing…and your cox (female) isn’t doing so! Dirty, dirty, but hilarious. Also, we had a nice drink afterwards with a few of the Stellenbosch girls, which is quite a civilized way to end races, I think. Rowers here are a lot friendlier with each other than in the States – they spend more time together, and come from a smaller pool as well, since pretty much everyone rowed at school, so by the time you’re at university boat race, you’ve been rowing together/against one another for years. Rowing here also takes itself a bit less seriously, which has its ups and downs – Williams clearly has nicer equipment, is more intense about training, and has the results to show from it, but UCT is more social with the other universities.

SO to get on with it – we had our final on Saturday afternoon, which was filmed and everything! We rowed with a camera attached to the stern, got tailed by three umpires’ boats and a helicopter (loud, annoying, and makes a huge wake. Dislike), and earlier that morning we’d filmed - with Dale, my stroke / me wearing a bike-helmet-mounted camera - some clips of the guys rowing and me coxing that got put into the televised version of the race. Cool. Unfortunately, despite being a super cool underdog story, we weren’t able to pull out a win. They got a big lead on us in the first 200m, and kept walking away from there. We posted a respectable time, though, and walked away quite pleased with silver medals. To finish out the weekend was prize-giving, a traditional jump off of the final bridge (that was HIGH and PAINFUL. But a great life choice – after getting asked by one of the UCT girls if I wanted to go jump with her, the two of us ran past the security guard on the bridge and climbed over the wall, to find 3 other UCT-ers coming up with us. After a good countdown, we all jumped. All are still in one piece, mom.), boat-packing (US: trailer loading), fines (Xio: court), a braai (US: BBQ), and an excellent jol. All in all, a GREAT week, with some good racing and lots of fun. As a result of our being awesome and coming in 2^nd (and really, 1^st of the actual university crews), we’re also going to get to row in Zambia next week, on the Zambezi, right by Victoria Falls, vs. Oxford & Cambridge. Whoo! More on that later. I’ve actually used up WAY too much of my internet for today (in SA you pay by the MB), so pictures will follow later this week.