So much to blog, so little time! I’m finally on my way home tomorrow and hope to write up my adventures this weekend. Went for a run this morning on our hotel’s outdoor track. This was not easy in the heat and humidity – not to mention dodging the lizards and people.
Have a great rest of the week, everyone.
Hi folks, I’m still here. Just returned from a week in the South African countryside – a big change from city life in Durban! I had no e-mail or telephone contact from the outside world for an entire week! Tomorrow morning I’ll fly to Indonesia. Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend.
So far, Durban is a fascinating place. This is by far the most developed African city I’ve ever seen, yet the really odd part is how unsafe it is (and how unsafe I feel). Today we worked at one of the study clinics located in a particularly lively area of town (open air markets, a dusty parking lot specifically reserved for washing taxi cabs, barbershop and fruit stands blaring garbled African music) Each day, the people who work in the building where this clinic is located have to be on their way home no later than 4:30 PM for safety reasons. Apparently, muggings, knifings, hijacking of cars, kidnappings and other atrocities occur regularly after that time all over town, but particularly near the clinic. We do not walk outside the hotel after dark, and we even take a taxi a few blocks if needed. Even traveling alone in what I once considered wild and dangerous places (like that time I accidentally stayed in a crackhouse in Abidjan) does not compare. I keep wondering what South Africans think about so much violence in their cities…
Meanwhile, the weather has been great (cool and rainy – yes, this seems divine after such a hot and dry North Carolina summer) and we have been eating so well! Thai, Italian, Indian, so many really good restaurants up and down our (don’t worry - quite safe) street. Also, our hotel is beautiful.
Work has been going fairly well. It has been a very, very busy week of monitoring activities for this study. It’s a bit frustrating to me not to be learning enough things fast enough, because there’s so much information to absorb. I’m meeting lots of new people – all the local study staff here in Durban are interesting and nice too. On Monday, my two FHI colleagues and I will travel to Pietermaritzburg - about one and a half hours north - which is where the study’s rural clinic is located. We’ll stay there until next Friday.
This weekend, I plan to get some running mileage (don’t worry – on a treadmill!) and then explore the city market and go to the famous Durban aquarium with my colleagues. Have a great weekend, everyone!
