A few weeks in

So I have been living in Durban a few weeks now. Its been great. The first week was spent racing around Durban in our crappy little Ford Sapphire. We stayed at a hotel (http://www.laletsa.co.za/) that was located on a rather precipitous hill. This hill had to have been at a 45 degree angle and was heavily occupied by angry Durban drivers. Imagine me, pulling out into traffic BACKWARDS, shifting gears with my left hand, trying not to shift into first, stalling, rolling backwards into the enthusiastic honks and complaints of oncoming traffic. This was my nightmare every morning. I have some experience driving a stick on the other side of the road (they obviously drive on the left here), but its still a shock to have to jump into this with no practice. Luckily, Kylie was there to laugh at me everytime I stalled the Sapphire.

After much debate and discussion. We settled on a small studio apartment in a really nice suburb of Durban. We live in one of the few places in town where it feels safe to go for a stroll at night. Our apartment is actualy attached to a much larger house, that is likely nicer than any house I have ever lived in. Monkeys raid our backyard once a week (see picture below). Kylie's favorite thing to do there is sleep on the big comfortable purple couch. She occasionally cooks and talks to me as well.

I think when a lot of people hear South Africa, they only hear the Africa part, and imagine mud huts, spears, and natives. My favorite response is "Oh really, which country in South Africa?" The big South African cities are nothing like what most people would imagine. Durban is a cosmopolitan city of over 2.5 million people. There are beaches, squatter villages, museums, slums, yacht clubs, and night clubs. What is fascinating about this place is the contrast. For exampls, our neighborhood is quite nice. Imagine a trendy residential area of San Francisco right next to a strip of bars and restauraunts. However, you can drive 5 minutes and be amidst some of the most profound poverty in the world. In a sense, its why I am here. You can live for a year in an exciting, interesting city and yet work with some of the most ill and overlooked people on the planet.

I am working at an organization called CAPRISA (www.caprisa.org) which stands for Center for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa. SARLAH (South Africans really like acronyms here). I spend most of my days at a the CDC (Center for Comminicable Diseases), a large tuberculosis treatment center in the middle of the city. This place is located smack in the middle of the aformentioned dangerous neighborhoods. You dont want to go walking here at night or even the daytime for that matter.

CAPRISA has their own side building to this very large TB clinic that treats the HIV/TB coinfected patients. That is really what I am here to study. All those coughing, sick patients coinfected with the two most important diseases of our time. Right now I see patients and enroll them into our studies.

I like this because 1) treating patiens with HIV in South Africa is such a phenomonal thing. They are sick, there is medicine that can help, and we get to give it to them. Its a privelage and its one of the many reasons I chose to work with this group. 2) CAPRISA is really trying to answer some fundamental questions about how to treat patients with HIV and TB. Most of the burning HIV treatment questions were addressed by American researchers in the 90's and antiretroviral therapy became more prevalent. But now, as ARV gets out to the millions of Africans who are currently effected, many more questions arise. One of these is the question of how to best treat the TB/HIV coninfected patient.

Ok, that is probably a little too much information, even for those come from a medical background. How about we stop, I'll post some pictures, and then I will actually get to work for the day (it is 9:05 afterall).

More to come.