Some early adventures in Durban

There are just so many things to write about; my first two and a half days here have been so incredibly full of activities. Malcolm ‘Mally’ Roselt, who owns the house I’m living in, is a most gracious host, driving myself and the other borders around to see many sights in and around Durban. He is currently hosting four people at his house, including myself. There is a lovely couple from Harvard Medical School – he’s recently finished his MD and she’s in the middle of her MD/PhD – and the fourth is a family friend of the Roselts. There will be more on the family friend, Casey, later; suffice to say for the moment that she shared her strong Christian and Creationist convictions with me yesterday evening, simultaneously mystifying and intriguing me. (Suffering from a rare bout of Tact, I decided to keep my big mouth shut about my own personal beliefs. But, because I can’t help myself, one choice comment from last night: “There is not one shred of conclusive scientific evidence to prove that evolution ever happened.” ??!.)

I have managed to take some nice pictures with my new digicam over the past few days – and so I think I will spare you from my more of my boring thoughts to present you with the following photo essay of the exciting places I’ve traveled to yesterday and today.

Yesterday morning Malcolm dropped me off in front of uShaka Marine World – an incredibly kitchty Sea World knock off, designed to look like a traditional Zulu village (Epcot Center, eat your heart out)





It seemed a bit depressing to pay 100R (current conversion rate: 7R to the 1$) to go see the dolphin show by myself, so I just walked through the shopping center out to the Indian Ocean. Here was the view I was graced with as I got beyond the last store. It is very difficult for me to believe that this is actually a picture of the city where I am currently living.



Pretty awesome, right? I walked down to the beach, dipped my toes into the warm blue water, sat down on my towel and read for a while. After I had been sitting out there an hour or so – and getting fantastically burnt, it turns out – an Indian man toting a woven wicker bag along the beach offered me food. Now, I’m not usually squeamish about eating Street Food, however, it took me a little while to muster up the courage to fork over the 5R for a container of potato curry. I figured the price was low enough that I wouldn’t feel guilty if I decided to pitch it. Final verdict: potato curry from the beach man = sketchy, yet extremely delicious. Here he is hawking his delicious wares to other people on the beach. “Want eat my curry? Eees delicious. Frresh dis mahning.”



And this morning we went out the Victoria Market, a large, semi-outdoors marketplace in the middle of the city, highlighting the Indian influence in the city. Here I am in front of the market with David, a resident at MassGeneral in Boston who is working at the McCord Hospital and living with the Roselts during his month in SA with his wife, an MD/PhD student at Harvard.



We walked around the market, looking at all of the beautiful sculptures, utensils, jewelry, and plates made from reappropriated Telcom telephone wire.









Then, I saw these out of the corner of my eye:



What the hell could they possibly be? Zulu condoms!



That’s funny – but not ‘ha, ha’ funny. It ‘s quite sad to see these being sold in a country with a 20-25% AIDS rate, where the Deputy President recently testified (as a defendant in his own rape trial) that he believed that HIV could be prevented by immediately showering after intercourse. There were lots of other exciting goods being sold in the market place.

Alright, I have completely run out of time here. I'm sorry I have to leave you so abruptly, but you should definitely go take a look at the rest of my pictures in my Flickr stream. In general, I've been doing really well, and I'll try and post again from the McCord Hospital soon. Tomorrow is my first day of work! I'm pretty excited.

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