Relativity

Posted on Monday 30th April, 2012 by Alan Whiteside

I think Durban is one of the nicest cities in the world. I have lived there for nearly 30 years. Ailsa and I bought our first house there and it is the place the children were born. The university has been, for me, a good work environment. At the beginning of my career I was well mentored and then given space and support to start my own unit. HEARD is going well with an amazingly good research output, high staff morale, adequate funding and a throughput of talented young researchers. All this is in our annual report, which will be on the website very soon.

In the middle of April I was in Nairobi, Kenya for a meeting on Efficiency, Effectiveness and Sustainability which the International AIDS Society organised. I am an elected Governing Council member and the Treasurer up to the International AIDS Conference in Washington in July (see www.iasociety.org.) It was a quick trip, flying up on Wednesday evening and returning to Durban on Saturday – I flew on the late flight from Nairobi to Johannesburg on Friday evening, slept at the City Lodge at OR Tambo airport and caught a flight down to Durban at a sensible time. I used air miles to upgrade the ticket so it was relatively painless. I had a colleague travelling at the same time as me so we chatted and went to the airport together. He will remain nameless given the story I am about to tell.

A while ago I noticed that my Yellow Fever vaccination was about to expire and so went and was re-immunised. Just as well, my companion had forgotten the card. The check-in staff would not let him on the plane without one, and they were quite adamant about this. He had to go across the airport to the clinic and get the shot, paying above the odds for it. Of course it takes time to become effective but this is generally overlooked. Indeed we were not even asked for the certificates! However the South African authorities can be very fierce about this!

I had two nights in Durban and on Monday the HEARD team flew to Johannesburg for the biannual donor and board meetings held at the aforementioned City Lodge. These went very well, with an excellent turnout for both, only one board member was not able to make it. From there I flew, in economy class, to Cape Town, a long two hour flight on a packed plane. This was for a Council on Health Research for Development meeting on the theme of Beyond Aid… Research and Innovation as key drivers for Health, Equity and Development, all the details are the websites at www.forum2012.org and www.cohred.org. This was most interesting.

There is no doubt Cape Town is stunning. I think it is the most beautiful city in the world. Driving in from the airport at about 6 pm the evening light was an amazing rosy shade. Coming round the side of the mountain on de Waal drive and seeing the centre of the city, the harbour with the huge gantries like a row of storks silhouetted against the south Atlantic, and in the distance, Robben Island, was breathtaking. I feel I have a champagne lifestyle on a soda water salary. I get to travel, stay in great hotels, see new and interesting places and meet all sorts of people.

The conference started on the Tuesday, so unfortunately I missed the first day. I was staying at one of my favourite hotels, The Cullinan, they describe themselves as ‘stylishly grand and perfectly majestic’ and I think this is fair. It is just a few minutes’ walk from the international convention centre. The relative merits of Durban and Cape Town are very different. I must admit to being tempted by Cape Town, as one of my friends said it has “the mountain factor”. This must have been the magnet that has drawn my extended family there. Friday was a public holiday, Freedom Day, marking the end of apartheid and the new democratic government. I spent most of it visiting family.

My brother Derek Whiteside was away on business and so I took Lynn, my sister-in-law and my three nieces Emily, Sarah and Katie out for lunch in Hout Bay – to a restaurant called Dunes. It is a stunning setting looking out over the bay with a band of ultra blue water just beyond the breaking waves. In the last while the euphonious dunes have blown away and now the view is straight on to the beach. We were at the restaurant joined by distant cousin Neil Hodgson and his daughter Lisa. He is a captain with South African Airways. As I am silly about aircraft and flying it is always great to talk to him and I (a minority perhaps) find discussing airline routes and types of planes to be deeply interesting. From there I went to visit my Uncle Fred and Aunt June (also Hodgsons) who live in a retirement home in Pinelands. This is on the way to the airport which makes dropping on them very easy. We were joined by my cousin Linda and her daughter Hayley (who has nearly completed her PhD at the University of Cape Town) and her sister, my cousin Sandra who was visiting from Uitenhage. The most family I have seen in a very long time.

Perhaps this posting is not just about relativity but also about reflection. Fred was very senior in de Beers Diamond Company and I have always looked up to him as a role model. Nearly 20 years ago he had a hip replacement operation that went wrong. As a result now finds it difficult to get around. He has a mobility scooter for inside the flat and a more robust one for going out. I still see him as a role model because of his attitude and stoicism.

They moved into the home two years ago expecting to get a large apartment. That arrangement fell through and they ended up with two apartments on different floors. They lived a schizoid life until the space next to theirs became available. Now they have been able to consolidate and expand at the same time, and actually have a very nice warm set of rooms.

Part of the conference ‘package’ was an evening out at Groot Constania, the original wine estate in South Africa, the vines being planted by the first governor of the Dutch settlement of Cape Simon van der Stel. We were taken there by bus, the scenic winding route round the coast, which left me feeling quite ill! However I soon recovered. The food and wine were fantastic and the entertainment was provided by South African diva Yvonne Chaka Chaka. This is what I mean by a champagne lifestyle. Of course one of the questions is who pays, because at the end of the day someone has to. We were told that it was the World Bank, and yet they were hardly represented which was a great pity. Fortunately, after the copious quantities of alcohol and excellent food, we went back on the short straight route.

I learnt, at the meeting, that health is underfunded, but more worryingly the health people do not understand how to advocate for more funding. They think that the fact that their cause is noble, it’s sufficient and this, sadly, is not the case! We know from our work that ‘crowding-out’ is a real issue. If foreign money is given to health then governments will tend to reallocate domestic resources. This is good, basic and responsible public administration. It is not what donors intend! I shall have to reflect on the meeting and write up some notes, since I was there in an official capacity as a person from the Department for International Development, although I would not presume to speak for the organisation. What was interesting was to meet people from a different circle from the one I normally operate in.

Reviews

Music

There has been a lot of music in Durban recently. I went to the University Jazz Centre to listen to a folky duo from Cape Town Andrew James and the Steady Tiger, I was so impressed that I went to hear them again at St Clements, a cafe on Musgrave Road. Their style is great; both are excellent guitarists with mellow voices. I thought they spent far too much time tuning the instruments though and exchanged emails with them about this. Some of their music is on their website. On the Friday evening The Collective, a new venue in Durban, hosted The South Jersey Pom-Poms, which is lead by a colleague from the University.

Books

The suburb of Manor Gardens, which was beautifully and evocatively written about by Barbara Trapido in her book Frankie and Stankie (Bloomsbury 2003), is where we bought our second house. It was let to chaotic tenants for about four years and they left a month ago. When I first went to look at it my heart absolutely sank. There has been work going on and I went to check on progress on Saturday and then went to lunch at a new cafe in the neighbourhood. Exhibit owned by Eunice van der Vloet is a house with an art gallery, table chairs and a limited menu. It is an encouraging addition to the neighbourhood and I hope it prospers. Sadly the estate agents tell me Manor Gardens is a leafy green quirky suburb, and that is not what people want.

I have finally finished reading Catherine Hakim’s Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital, (Allen Lane 2011, 384 pages). I found it a thought provoking book. The two key points were: What is erotic capital and the idea of a male sexual deficit. It makes a number of rather challenging statements, but will certainly be of use in understanding behaviours and responding to AIDS.

Deaths and Departures April 2012

Posted on Sunday 15th April, 2012 by Alan Whiteside

Easter is always a time of reflection: spring in England and autumn in Durban. I have reason to take stock. I arrived back in Durban on the 2nd of April. On the 3rd, I went to the funeral of Cosmas Desmond, an anti-apartheid activist, member of the Durban community, and father to one of HEARD’s first and highly appreciated members of staff – Chris Desmond. There is a touching obituary in the UK Telegraph at http://tgr.ph/IfXyZP . The service was held in the chapel at Nazareth House, a home for the elderly, just up the road from my flat. The service was Catholic and very formal. I hope, at some point, there will be a more intimate celebration of this remarkable man’s life.

The previous weekend was also contemplative as, five years after she died, we scattered my mother’s ashes. Brother Derek and sister Gill came to Norwich, from Cape Town and London respectively. On a sunny Saturday we drove, with Ailsa, to Weybourne, with a beautiful, tiered pebbled beach on the North Norfolk coast. It is not far from Sheringham where mum live happily for some years, and it seemed ideal for our final goodbye.

The occasion was not without stress because each sibling had to be consulted as fully and tactfully as possible. (And I am not tactful). Therefore, when I phoned the undertakers to ask they had the ashes ready for me to pick up I was dismayed to hear the receptionist say: “Do you want a scattertube?”
I was flummoxed, “A what?”
She explained it was a cardboard tube that allows the ‘scatterer’ to have some control over the process, rather than just dumping the ashes out of the urn/paper bag/or in South Africa a Ziploc plastic bag.
The she pointed me to the web and said, “Just type in scattertubes.”
The economist in me lead to the next question, “what do they cost?”
‘Our’ undertakers do not charge for them but you have to choose the design: ‘seaside sunset’, ‘forest glade’, ‘mountain view’ and so on.

I really did not want to have to make choices but after due thought I picked ; and my mother’s ashes were poured into the North Sea by a brave Gill, who stepped into the water to do this. The next question was what to do with the tube – we filled it with pebbles and seawater and threw it out into the sea where it will degrade overtime. I hope the tide was out when we did that, I never thought of that.

Prior to this Ailsa and I had some rare time away. We left Norwich on the evening of Sunday 11th March after supper, flying directly to Edinburgh using Flybe. We hired a car and spent the night at a Premier Inn near the airport. It was not too hard to find as Premier Inns have purple signage. They are basic but good and cheap hotels. On Monday we got on the motorway and drove north going across the Forth Road Bridge. It was great to see the famous railway bridge with its iconic tracing of girders next to us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge Looking it up, I discovered that the famed “never-ending task” of painting the Forth Bridge, (“as soon as it is painted, the crew has to start again”) is in fact erroneous. Thank you Wikipedia!

We drove straight north past Perth and then through the upland area past Pitlochry to Inverness along very good roads, with the Cairngorms in the distance (some snow still visible but it was warm in the valley!). Ailsa remembers a small, windy road in the mid sixties, with the drama of the exceptionally steep, Devil’s elbow. We stopped on the way for an excellent cup of coffee at a modern glass and wood comfort stop just off the road in the middle of nowhere, a former tourist office. It was pretty, offered internet connection, good food and information.

Across from our vantage point on the next bridge, at Kessock, Inverness, did not look prepossessing: no more than a sprawling urban site on the coast although Ailsa remembers it as a mecca, which offered rare treats like dried bananas, oranges and Allinsons’ bread. We had no need to go in so don’t know what delights it has to offer now. For Ailsa, it meant the fun of putting the car on to the rather elderly Eilean Dubh ferry which must have gone constantly to and fro between the Moray and Beauley Firths, with the added frissson of making it back before the last sailing on the way home
We followed a small road through the tamed, peaceful countryside of the Black Isle and drove up to Fortrose through the pretty fishing village, Avoch.

We spent the middle of the day there looking at places Ailsa had known as a child. This included the beach on which the family camped an entire summer when they first moved there – it is now a caravan park. They later moved to a croft high up above Rosemarkie on the way to Cromarty. The esteemed Fortrose Academy is now a monstrosity of a building but the older stonework school is still there. It must be catering for students from across the whole of the Black Isle. New, glass fronted homes are being constructed to look over the shining Moray Firth. Retirement anyone?

We had lunch at a cafe named after the ferry which I thought must mean Black Isle in Gaelic. We then drove to Aberdeen going through, Nairn, Elgin and Inverurie. Inverurie, Ailsa found later was the area her paternal grandfather came from. It was a long day in the car, but worth it.

Aberdeen is called the Granite city and indeed it is a grey place, hilly, robust and provident. We found the hotel we were staying at: the Atholl Hotel, a small but friendly place and ate dinner in the bar there. On Tuesday morning Ailsa walked with me as I was giving a presentation at the University of Aberdeen in the Health Economics Research Unit. I met up with my host Mandy Ryan, had coffee, gave the seminar to a packed room, and was then taken for lunch. After this I took a taxi into town to meet Ailsa who had walked into town.

Ailsa had spent the day tracking down churches that her grandfather, Cannon Vane Walker, had been involved in and showed me two. Her grandfather was an Episcopalian minister who served in a number of locations in the north east of Scotland. One neglected little church, St Clement’s on the Quay, was surrounded by warehouses and located beside the docks within spitting distance of huge boats. It is now derelict, but the quaint building is still a haven with spreading trees, and a graveyard full of tragic stories and heroic individuals who depended on the sea for a livelihood. One grave stone particularly caught my eye.
“Erected by Thomas and Barbara Sinclair
in memory of their son James
who died 30th August 1873
aged 32 years
also their eldest son Thomas
who died of a fever
Also William and John who died in infancy And one of a day old”
They buried five children did not name or give the gender of the child who with in a day of the birth!
An inspiring place for Ailsa’s father to grow up; the Manse was hard by the church. Her mother has exercise books of stories of sea adventures and drawings of ships completed by him when a youngster which were found only recently, left at her parent’s family home when they went abroad. Too bad he is dead and never saw them again! They lie, untouched in Ailsa’s stepfather’s home.

Meanwhile, I was suffering badly from foot pain and was quite heroic, tramping onwards to visit the even quainter St Margaret’s church, high on its own hill in the midst of the city with a view far out to sea. I was grateful that one of the things we did was to buy supportive inserts for my shoes which have gradually made a huge difference – highly recommended for severe foot pain: although five minutes of exercise twice a day would be even better, but I find it really hard to make this commitment!

This grand dad seemed to have shifted about with churches in Cuminstown, Cupar in East Fife, and St Andrews. Not to mention St Ninian’s Cathedral, Perth.

Wednesday was a free day and we drove from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. Before we did this however we went to the Gordon Highlanders Museum. They were a famous Scottish regiment and were the first British troops to be deployed to Swaziland in 1963. I well remember as a six or seven year old walking along the road near our house and coming across two of the soldiers strolling past wearing uniform, which included of course kilts. We spoke to them but did not understand a word they said in reply. It made a huge impression on me and I was glad to have had the opportunity to visit the museum. It is also clearly a social hub for people who served in, or were linked with the regiment and there were many who wanted to help us. This I find a little embarrassing and so having been there, was quite happy to leave. We drove through the old town in Aberdeen, feeling that the place would merit a longer visit at some point.

Aberdeen is the third biggest city in Scotland and our limited impression is of a sprawling city. We drove along the coastal road looking for a place to have coffee and going through what must have been fishing villages, Stonehaven and Johnshaven until we got to Montrose where we stopped for lunch with a flurry of teenage school children in what appeared to be a medieval prison. In the summer or snow the drive must be really beautiful, but at the tail end of winter it was just a shadow of what it could be. We went through Dundee to St Andrews and walked around that university town. Again a place where Ailsa’s grandfather spent time. It is primarily a university town with the other major activity being golf. We had tea in a Christian centre attached to lovely Episcopalian a church and explored further but it was getting really chilly and there are only so many churches one can do in a day.

Then it was on through Edinburgh to find a place to stay near Queen Margaret University. Ailsa navigated and we were able to find a Premier Inn right next to the campus, again, purple lights were a stroke of genius. The next morning we went to the University, which is a new, self-contained campus in a green field site. We were met by our hosts and shown their working space. Quite bizarrely they have open plan offices for academics. This is completely contrary to anything I have seen before. I gave a seminar there on ‘the sustainability of the AIDS response’ to an interesting and interested audience.

We drove into Edinburgh to find our hotel which is part of the College of Surgeons building and is now a fantastic modern hotel ‘10 Hill Street’ in case anyone is looking for a good hotel which even had (limited) parking. As it was about five o’clock we walked down to Princes Street and the Royal mile and ambled around the city stopping for a bit of a disappointing pizza place.

On Friday, my commitment was to give a talk at Edinburgh University in the afternoon. This, as in Aberdeen, was on the ‘safe sex/no sex hypothesis’. There was a small audience, but to be honest at 15.00 on a Friday I was surprised there was anyone there at all. We had walked up to Edinburgh Castle on the morning and the overarching impression is of a city geared to tourism. In the evening we had dinner with colleagues from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh University, and the Department for International Development.

The only Flybe flight to Norwich on a Saturday leaves at 06.55 it meant we have had to be up and out of the hotel by 05.00 to find our way to the airport and drop off the car. We managed to accomplish this task well. The plane took off on time and we were home by nine where we were met by Doug with the dog.

It was a great trip, enjoyed by both of us. Combining a certain amount of work with pleasure was absolutely the right way to go and I really enjoyed it. While I think learning to use a GPS would be a good move, Ailsa managed to navigate through the cities and countryside with considerable skill and patience. Scotland is on my list of places to go back to soon.

Prime Circle: Easter 2011

Posted on Wednesday 20th April, 2011 by Alan Whiteside

This posting could be entitled ‘Pregnancy, Prime Circle, and Team Building’ as these are the three dominant themes of the past couple of weeks. Most of the Easter weekend has been spent working. I have finally emerged from a mass of administration and planning to resume writing my Swaziland book. ‘A Political Economy of Swaziland’ is what I have optimistically titled it. I am over half way through now and do need to get it to the publishers since it is at least 18 months late. But I have really enjoyed working on it. Swaziland is such an interesting and usual little country, and at the moment, there is a degree of political change which is exciting.

I went to Swaziland for a few days at the beginning of April. Apart from doing some additional book research this was to attend the first Waterford Governing Council (GC) meeting of the year. I have been on the GC since 1994 so have some institutional memory! In 2008, for the first time, since I joined, the GC was faced with having to make a decision around pregnancy. One of the female students, from a poor area, had fallen pregnant. We decided, probably wrongly, that the main concern was the baby. I say wrongly because as Governors our prime concern should always be the well-being of the school. We took a decision that the girl should be sent down for a year, but could return at the end of this. She did and is now a scholarship student at an internationally known university. Having set policy, the Headmaster then took the same decision in 2010 when he was faced with a second pregnancy. The same outcome was reported, the student is back at school and doing well.

At this GC we had a variation on the theme. A pregnant female student, but the father acknowledging his paternity, is also at the school. A policy decision had to be taken. What was most interesting for me is that while we can make a broad policy, we cannot cover every eventuality. What if the girl says she was made pregnant by a male student, but he refuses to acknowledge this? Given that he would face sanction this probably makes sense for him. Do we carry out a paternity test? What do we do if the girl says she was raped? It is clear that while there are in many instances there have to be rules, flexibility is necessary. Of course in other cases there should be no leniency, for example the school has a zero tolerance rule when it comes to drugs.

Back in Durban I have been very busy with work but found time to go to two gallery openings, one at theKwaZulu Natal Art Society Gallery. The main exhibitor was a botanical artist which I do not find terribly exciting. The second at Durban ArtSpace is a very unusual gallery in an industrial area of town next to the railway line.This was entitled wo.man and was way over my head. Most interesting though, I did not know a single person there although I did recognize one, he had been at the KZNA opening. Perhaps this is a little sad!

Cultural activities continued when I went to listen to ‘Prime Circle’ a South African band who described themselves as South Africa’s leading rock band http://www.primecircle.co.za This was at the Gateway shopping Center about 35 km from my flat. I find I drive slowly along the motorway, trying to treat the car with love and respect. It is after all nearly 20 years old now, bought new and registered in 1992. However as it has only done 130,000 km I think it is good for a few more years yet.

We have been looking at ways of building the HEARD staff into a more cohesive unit. Much as I hate the term, ‘team building’ is a good idea. So last Thursday we headed off for a team building experience. The decision was taken to go to cooking school for a half day. Fusion is not very far from our campus in Westville see and they have a great restaurant in Durban We were divided into three teams, and set to the task of cooking Thai style chicken breasts stuffed with various herbs and spices. For the vegetarians stuffed mushrooms were the option.

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Each cooking station was allocated a student, described as a ‘cooking fairy’ to assist us. It was quite an experience. The key learning for me was that you need equipment and enthusiasm. The desert was banana pancakes skewers lightly brushed with a reduction of sugar and flavorings, including vanilla, and rolled in grated chocolate. A good time was had by all, and certainly I feel less intimidated by the thought of cooking now. To be fair the bulk of the work was done by one or two people on the team.

I am amused to look at my browser and see that I have two websites open one for Fusion and one a classic article by Sidney Kark on the ‘Social Pathology of Syphilis’ published in 1949. It identifies migration as one of the major drivers of sexually transmitted diseases in southern Africa.

This week I have twice been reminded of how nice it is to be fit and young, although it is possible to be young and not fit. I played squash with Jeremy Grest and his son Adam, who is in his early 20’s. Adam gets round the court without stopping, it was only guile that allowed me to win points and he beat me! On Sunday evening I went for a long run (in time rather than distance). Two of the children from the flats were playing by the gate.

“Are you going for a run”, asked one.
“Yes”, I replied.
“My brother has just gone”, he said. This brother being a lean lad of about 14.
“I’ll try to catch up with him”, I responded as I started my standard slow plod.
“He was running much faster than that”, said the boy disdainfully.

I ran up past St Augustine’s hospital to Ridge Road, and then down the bottom of the Pigeon Valley nature reserve. The monkey troop that live there were raiding across the street and looked at me with disbelief. From there to the Howard college campus, then back along what was Manning, and is now Lena Ahren’s, Road. It was the magical hour when the sun has a particular evening tint, and Durban was stunning. Interesting up the hill, security gets tighter, and the dogs bigger, more numerous and louder.

Films

Men who stare at Goats, we bought a DVD of this film a while ago. It was seriously damaged and so unwatchable, but this only became apparent about 40 minutes into it. I hired the DVD the other night and so have finally seen it. I really enjoyed it. It is just about credible that people could behave in this bizarre way in the interests of … what? It is the story of reporter in Iraq who meets Lyn Cassaday who claims he was part of the New Earth Army who employ paranormal powers. George Clooney stars and there is no love interest!

On The Road Again: March 2011

Posted on Saturday 26th March, 2011 by Alan Whiteside

The train journey from London to Norwich is one I have done countless times. On the third Sunday in February I flew from Durban to London, spent Monday at the DFID office in Palace Street (the building actually overlooks Buckingham Palace), then headed for Norwich to spend a few days with the family. It was dark by the time we pulled into Norwich in the late afternoon, I had forgotten how early the night begins in February in the UK. Long summer evenings make up for this to some extent, but it was still a shock.

On Friday I went back to Heathrow to fly to Boston for an International AIDS Society Executive Committee meeting. The railway company advertised wireless access on the train and I decided to try it. It cost only £2.95, which seemed reasonable. The signal was excellent the whole way down, better than mobile phones which fade in mid-conversation! It is a pity the battery on my computer is not keeping a charge at the moment. It is really good to see technology that works well.

I wish the same could be said for Virgin Atlantic. They were flying a small Airbus on the route from Heathrow to Boston, and the only way to get computer power was to spend £50 for a special adapter. The cabin controller explained to me that Virgin had ‘incidents’ when passengers left their laptops on and there was overheating and fires (I think she meant potential fires). I said that my usual carriers KLM/AirFrance and South African Airways did not have this problem, and why was that? There was no sensible answer. I gave her my card and she assured me that the airline would write and explain. I am still waiting for the letter. It may, of course, be that they do actually send a letter and it has gone to Durban, but surely most people use e-mail.

In my few weeks in Norwich in February and March, there was evidence that spring had finally arrived. There were snowdrops and crocuses out in the gardens, looking very pretty, and the daffodils appeared by the time I got back from the second trip. I love the scattering of flowers across the lawn, looking like islands of colour. There is a small pond next to my office window, and this year there were probably four or five pairs of frogs busily laying their eggs in it. There was been a chorus of croaking, which I have not heard before in the UK. It has taken a few years for the frog population to build up to this level. I wonder if part of the causality may be that the cat is older and less likely to hunt them. The pond will be full of tadpoles in a few weeks, then the garden crawls with tiny frogs.

I was in Durban for about five weeks in January and February, although it is hard to believe that looking back. I did get to the beach a few times with my body board, and can confirm that I really don’t know what I am doing. In a 45 minute session I am lucky if I manage to catch one wave! It is time to get a few lessons; fortunately the former boyfriend of one of Rowan’s friends was the KwaZulu-Natal champion body boarder so I know where to go. Learning to surf (well body board) was one of my 50th birthday resolutions. The other two were to learn to fly and ball room dance. It is possible to be bad at body boarding and dancing and I am; flying is another matter.

I normally dread February in Durban, it can be so very hot and humid. This year was surprisingly clement, and although I used the air conditioners, it was not excessive. Towards the end of last year I noticed a small bird nesting in the unit that cools the lounge. It had to be cleaned and serviced before it worked. My decision was to wait until the chicks had fledged and departed. Fortunately the Berea Gym, http://www.fitnesscompany.co.za/FC_home.php which is where I go in Durban, attracts a range of people and my trainer recommended one to do the work. It was at my convenience and a reasonable rate, both hugely advantageous for me. There is now a new wire mesh in place so the birds will have to look for a new site next year, they have been given notice. There are definite advantages in belonging to a good gym that attracts a range of people, from professors (at least three I know) to artisans.

The highlight of relaxing time in Durban (and there was not all that much of this), was going to listen to Mango Grove http://www.mangogroove.co.za at the Botanic Gardens on Monday 14th February, a Valentine’s Day concert. I told the staff at HEARD that this was where I was going and that people were welcome to join me. There were not many takers! Why be surprised though, Valentine’s with the boss is not what people would immediately think of. It was a beautiful evening, not too hot fortunately and not raining, which is always a danger for events there. Sitting listening to great music of Africa with, as background sound, the piping of the tree frogs and the chirps of the fruit bats was a treat. The Gardens are an asset for the city, over 100 years old now.

An unexpected occurrence was the passenger window of my car falling into the door. This is one of the things that happens as the car ages. It is nearly 20 years old, but only has 120 000 kilometres on the clock. Another reason to be grateful for the weather is that the car’s air conditioning stopped working about five years ago. I was told that it was simply not worth getting it fixed, it would cost nearly as much as the car is worth. I don’t mind driving with the windows open though, an environmentally friendly, manual mode of cooling.

The team at HEARD is working really well. We have a large number of academic publications, which is one of the key metrics by which we are judged in a university setting. More than that, I believe that the work we are doing is influencing policy and even making a difference in people’s lives. The direction seems reasonably clear; we have a very good senior management team with Kay Govender having joined us from Psychology for two years as Research Director. Samuel Gormley has been there nearly a year now as the Operations Director. We even had good news, finally, on a grant that we ran for 10 years. The close-out accounting they produced suggested we needed to pay back about $40 000, our figures said we were due about $66 000. Having gone backwards and forwards our figures were finally accepted and this money will pay a salary for a year or more.

I hope that in the course of this year we will see a couple of staff graduate with PhDs, or at least submit them. There is a good chance that some can do this via the publications route. I need to find some time to sit with the CV’s and as we say in South Africa “make a plan”.

Having been in Boston for two cold days on the Sunday I went on to, even colder, Ottawa. Travelling is mostly fun and I am really lucky to be paid to do it. Leaving from Boston encapsulated the human condition with two vignettes. As I went up the escalator to the departure gate I looked back down to the arrivals area. There was a little tot of a girl, bundled up to the nines in a puffy pink coat, pulling her case which, standing up, would have been as tall as she was. She caught my eye, beamed at me and waved furiously. I wonder why? Then at the top of the top of the escalator were two airport staff, both Hispanic. He was weeping, red eyed and desperate; she was standing uncomfortably but clearly wanting to give solace. What was going on there? Airport stories are frustratingly fleeting. There was a US security officer who stood solemnly, watching the passengers who had passed through the screening. What was going though his mind, what a waste of a person. But perhaps not, it is a job and one of the real challenges we face in Southern Africa is employment creation.

From Ottawa I flew to Montréal and then to Geneva, a direct flight which was a blessing. I had the Sunday mostly free, found a gym, had a long workout but also did a great deal of work in the hotel room. I have been going to Geneva for a long time and have always found the hotels to be of a mediocre quality. This is one I had stayed in before, Hotel Rue des Alpes, and I have to say it is transformed. The rooms are comfortable, light and well furnished. Quite a change from the pokey, dark and expensive hotels I stayed in on previous visits.

I returned to the UK via Stansted airport on EasyJet. This was a complete shock; it is years since I was on a budget airline. The way costs are cut seems to be to reduce customer service to a minimum. I had my boarding card, it actually constituted the ticket. Arriving at the airport you are required to print your own baggage tag, not complicated for people who are used to doing this, but as a first timer I found it very stressful. When I get stressed I sweat, not an attractive sight at all.

The next step is to queue up and deliver your luggage to the check-in counter. As an EasyJet passenger you have no access to any lounges and once you board the plane there are no allocated seats. There was a trolley service but you pay for everything. The plane was about an hour late leaving and 30 minutes late getting in to Stansted and then there was a huge queue for the immigration control which I was not expecting. It is clear that budget travel has transformed the way people think about distances. My view is I would rather not travel at all if this is the way I have to do it. However this may be mediated by the fact that at the moment all my travel is paid for. I might have a different view in the future.

I was back in Norwich for a couple of days and we drove up to York for a night. The dog came with us; as did the dog food was in a rather nice Tupperware container. This was unfortunate because in the hotel in York I took a pinch of it and ate it thoughtfully, thinking it was muesli. I don’t know who was more offended, me or the dog. She looked at me with shock. Douglas had a day with a friend, and we went into Scarborough, a Victorian seaside town. It is really nice, and I observe that budget airlines and cheap travel mean that these resorts are battling to sustain themselves, a great pity. The town is nestled in a little hollow on the eastern coast in Yorkshire. There is a ruined castle sitting brooding on one of the headlands. There is a small harbour, which is used by fishing vessels and pleasure craft. The fishing boats ranged from tiny to trawlers with their own rubber ducks.

In mid-March I was invited to present at a briefing for the Africa All Party Parliamentary Group (AAPG) at the Houses of Parliament in London. The title was: ‘Swaziland: a kingdom in crisis? HIV AIDS, gender and rights’. This was a joint meeting between the AAPPG and the Royal African Society. The main speaker was Siphiwe Hlope, the founder and director of SWAPOL (Swazis for positive living). She is a powerful individual who spoke authoritatively and from the heart.

It is always amazing to go to the Parliament, the building is remarkable and to walk through the Great Hall where both Charles I and Guy Fawkes were tried and condemned gives one a sense of history. Today most people simply hurry through, oblivious to the story that the stones, have to tell. My brief intervention was to say: to understand the HIV epidemic in Swaziland, it is important to know the history of the kingdom. I believe, and this is what I am trying to write in my book, that colonialism, alienation of the land, capitalism, apartheid, gender relations, the monarchy and migration have all played a critical role in allowing HIV to get a foothold in the country and to spread so rapidly. If we understand the history we may be able to act.

I had a couple of weeks in the UK and then headed back to southern Africa. I will get to Swaziland for a Waterford Governing Council meeting and HEARD is hosting a number of conferences and trainings in Durban. One is on systematic reviewing; it is something I am very keen to attend as it seems a methodology that we can use in our research. It is a way of getting one’s head around the big picture. We will have someone from the South African Medical Research Council come up to Durban and teach it to over two days. Somehow I have to get going on the Swaziland book and finish it, it is long overdue. So let me end this update here.

Films

RED is the story of ex-CIA agents being hunted down and killed because of an event they witnessed or were involved in decades earlier. It has an all star caste which included Helen Mirran and was great fun. I regard it as perfect airplane viewing.

The American by contrast was excellently made and full of suspense. It is the story of a hit man hiding out in a picturesque Italian village. The characters are well developed and sympathetically drawn. There were only three main characters; the hit man, a prostitute and a priest. The star is George Clooney, which is why I choose it in the first place. This was shown on the Virgin flight and all the entertainment was on a cycle which meant that it was important to be sure that you wanted to watch the film when it started! The ending was quite unexpected and moving.

Black Swan. This is a disturbing film. It is the story of a ballet dancer pushed to the limit. For me the big question was:’to what extent did she have agency’? Was she a helpless pawn in a system that takes people in, uses them, and spits them out or was this what she wanted? What was her mother’s role in this? The director came across as a total shit, but maybe that is the way you have to be if you are leading a company and have to turn out commercially successful productions. I am glad I saw it though and will now try to see ‘The King’s Speech’ which is what I have been looking for on the flights I have taken, but it has not been on.

Love and Other Drugs is a the only film not seen on a plane. It is a 2010 comedy based on the non-fiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman. The story is of a young man who becomes a medical representative selling a Viagra. He meets and beds the patient of a doctor he visits, she is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The film describes how they negotiate their relationship and is done sensitively. It is typical aeroplane viewing, but I went to see it in a cinema.

Slow Durban: January 2011

Posted on Thursday 20th January, 2011 by Alan Whiteside

In front of my flat there is a jacaranda tree. Since I am on the third floor I look straight out into the upper branches. The first blossoms begin to appear in October. By November the tree is covered with purple flowers. Gradually the green leaves take over, and today, in early February, there are only two sprays of flowers. The rest of the tree is a verdant green. The birds enjoy it, constantly flitting in between the branches. I have slightly mixed feelings about the birds. I am woken up by the dawn chorus, which begins at about 04:30. By five o’clock it is light. I generally get up soon after this and make my breakfast.

For the last week I have been at my office by 06:30. This has its advantages. One is that the world seems clean and bright at that time of day. Driving up through the bush and nature reserve surrounding the University the other morning I saw the largest gathering of monkeys I have ever seen in Durban. I suspect that a number of troops had joined together, because with all the rain we’ve had food must be abundant. A few minutes later there were two mongeese next to the road.

I have even seen a legavaan. As an aside I note that my computer does not like the word mongeese. What is the plural of a mongoose? Mongeese or mongooses? Nor does it recognize legavaan (a species of monitor lizard) the link is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanus_albigularis.

I got back to Durban in the middle of January, having spent four nights in Johannesburg at a Global Poverty Dialogue. This was organised by the Brooks World Poverty Institute of Manchester University. The out of town delegates stayed at Melrose Arch in a very nice hotel, and the meeting was in Turbine Hall in downtown Johannesburg. This was once the city power station, coal fired and huge. It has been turned into a spectacular and historical conference venue and it was great fine to be there, although having to board buses and go backwards and forwards in rush hour traffic was not so much fun.

I have rather enjoyed Durban. January, February and March can be very difficult months as it is often hot and humid. So far, touch wood, this has not been the case. We’ve had a fair amount of rain but also there have been cool breezes blowing. This was just as well as the air conditioner in the lounge was not working. I noticed a small bird nesting in it just before I left last year. When I switched it on it just blew hot air. Today one of the chaps from the gym came up and pulled a mass of twigs from the inside of the unit and gave it a service, so room is cool and it did not cost me a fortune. I had not switched it last year on as I did not want to disturb the fledglings.

This past month has been marked by two sad events, the deaths of two people who were very much part of our Durban experience. The first was Dinah, who lived in the servant’s quarters at Manor Drive. She had been there for a long time when we bought the house and we allowed her to stay there, as she worked in the neighbourhood. It was a real eye-opener to see how people were treated under the apartheid regime. The room had no ceiling, only one window, no electricity, and no hot water. The walls were of a thinner brick than was used in the main houses. We put in a ceiling, a second window, and ran a power supply to the khaya, as these little houses were called. Dinah retired about six years ago and moved back to her home in the Transkei.

She was in regular touch with her last employer. Apparently he phoned her couple of weeks ago. She asked after his ancient parents. He replied, “they are very tired”.
She said, “yes I am tired too”.

The following evening Dinah went to bed and simply did not wake up. This is not a bad way to go.

By contrast the death of my past time domestic helper has been difficult for everyone. About three years ago she got TB, which was I learnt, because she was HIV-infected. Fortunately in South Africa people with TB and HIV go on to antiretroviral therapy earlier, and although her CD4 count was about 350 she got the medication. Unfortunately some of the drugs have side effects and she was one of the unfortunate few who experience this. In particular a drug called d4t causes difficulty for the peripheral nervous system and makes it very difficult to walk. This affected her. It was clear that she would have to stop working and her other employer and I were discussing what pension arrangements we could make.

Before Christmas she had a bout of flu and never really recovered. She was bed ridden and extremely unwell. Early in the new year the person one whose property she lived took her to a nearby private hospital where they diagnosed dysentery, TB and pneumonia. She was relocated into a government hospital and a few weeks ago transferred to a TB hospital for recuperation. Unfortunately she did not recover. Her daughters were able to visit her the day she died and learnt that the plan was to send her back to the main hospital. She was just not doing well.

She was one of those powerful women who held the family together. She got her two grandsons into good local school in Manor Gardens and was very ambitious for the grandchildren but less patients with her two daughters. I was appalled to learn that her eldest grandson, having had the benefit of an excellent primary education, is currently not in school because his parents have been unable to find a place for him. Had she been well enough she would never have allowed this to happen. While the proximate cause of death may have been TB, I suspect she was simply exhausted. She was about 54 years old, two decades younger than Dinah. You will have noticed I have not written her name, the stigma surrounding HIV means I am very reluctant to identify her.

I had intended to spend my first Saturday of February working. This did not happen. I went to the gym at eight o’clock, and met the person who was to fix my air conditioner. He came to the flat after he had trained, worked out that is – he knew what he was doing with the units. This meant I only left for my office at the university at about 11.00. I discovered that the air-conditioner there was not switched on, and it was far too hot to concentrate.

I came back to the flat and decided to go to the beach with my body board. On the way there I went to the voter registration station. At the moment the government has a campaign to register voters and since I have moved I needed to get on the electoral roll. There are local government elections coming up. This registration was surprisingly painless: an interesting combination of high and low technology. The form was filled in with a pen. Then the identity documents of both the person registering me and mine were scanned by a hand held device. The machine spits out a piece of paper and this is glued (prit) in the ID book, to prove that I am registered and have the right to vote.

I headed for the beach and discovered that there was no one else even thinking about going into the waves. The sea was incredibly choppy and unfriendly. Not a great end to the day.

Books

Malla Nunn, Let the Dead Lie, Simon and Schuster, 2010, 382 pages.

This author lives in Australia, was born in Swaziland, and writes about crime in 1950s South Africa. This is her second book, the first was set in an area just north of Swaziland. The story in this book takes place in Durban. Many of the areas are familiar to me. The key character is working undercover in Durban’s docks and witnesses a murder. The story is about how he solves the crime. The book is set at a time when the apartheid laws are just being introduced and the classification of Emmanuel Cooper, the hero, is ‘coloured’, although at the end it seems he regains his status as a ‘white’ South African. Nunn is an excellent author, she astutely observes the tensions of the 1950s, the rise of the racist regime, and the complexities of relationships in this setting. I look forward to her next book.

David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Hodder and Stoughton, 2010, 469 pages.

This is a complex and fascinating book. It is set in Japan from 1799 to 1817. It is the story of the Dutch trading center and the interactions between the Dutch and Japanese men and women. The heroes are Jacob, and the woman he falls in love with, Orito Aibagawa. In the course of the book they meet perhaps half a dozen times before she is sent to a monastic order. Mitchell has clearly done a great deal of homework and his depiction of life in Japan in the 1800s is deeply fascinating. The story is initially slow but engrossing.

Looking Back At 2010: December 2010

Posted on Sunday 26th December, 2010 by Alan Whiteside

At the end of the year it is a time to reflect on some of the highlights and lowlights. I have been spending time with Douglas looking at his AS level psychology book, which has been fascinating. On the basis of that I think events can be divided into personal, professional, and ecological (this last meaning what went on around).

The World Cup in South Africa was an absolutely fantastic experience and has to be one of the best things that happened in 2010. I was fortunate enough to see four games. The first was the USA versus UK in Rustenburg. I was invited by the Corporate Social Responsibility people from South African Breweries. It was a great start, one of the smaller stadia, but a fantastic atmosphere. We had an opportunity to look at some of the SAB projects in the area, which was deeply interesting and inspiring. There are communities that are ‘making it’ and it does not take much.

The other three games were all at Durban’s new, Moses Madiba stadium. Over the years we had watched this stadium being constructed, between the Berea Ridge and the ocean, and wondered if it would be finished on time. Indeed that was a theme across the entire country: could we get everything completed? The fact is that we did it! All the infrastructure was delivered on, or even well ahead of, schedule.

I will admit to being prejudiced. I think that our new airport and stadium are the best. The stadium’s the sweeping white lines, the arch, and the majestic and imposing presence all make it quite wonderful. And then, of course, going to watch the games in it was also special. We had been warned that there might be problems in finding places to park, but I was never more than a 35 minute walk away. The match I enjoyed most was the Portugal:Brazil game when I met up with my old school friends David Crush and Owen Sharp. None of the games I saw were particularly inspiring from a football point of view, but all were great fun and the atmosphere amazing.

The airport is quite magnificent and is designed to last for many decades. Although means an extra 20 minutes on the road, I don’t mind. It means that in the course of the next few years we should start seeing direct flights from Durban to European cities. To be able to fly direct without the annoying change in Johannesburg will be convenient.

South Africa came together around this World Cup. We showed that we were a friendly, competent and hospitable nation. Almost everything worked, almost all the time and there was comparatively little crime. The press reported that “only one tourist had been seriously injured, he had been shot in the arm”. But, as though it somehow made it all right: “he had not been in the country for the World Cup”.

One of my personal highlights was having a flying lesson in Swaziland. I have now flown four different types of aircraft, from three airports, with four different instructors. The flight in Swaziland was fantastic for many reasons. The first has to be the beautiful landscape. The countryside was at its green and lush. Second, flying amidst the mountains. The country round Norwich, where I have had most of my lessons, is very flat. It is here that, during the second world war, all the major airfields and bomber stations were constructed. The general flying area in Durban is also flat. In Swaziland if you take off from the airport and turn left, it only takes about five minutes before one is flying in mountains. It was such a thrill to fly with down a valley seeing the mountains on either side. Third was flying over areas that I know well. We flew up to Mbabane and over Waterford school, which we circled twice. I have always wanted to fly over the country and so this was my chance. Finally there are no landing fees at Matsapha airport, so while the cost of the lesson is the same, going and doing circuits will be cheaper. It is something I intend to do next time I am there.

I have completed my list of flights taken during 2010 and I do not seem to have been on the more scheduled flights than usual. Travelling on the new Airbus A380 was a thrill though. I had not expected to be on it, and only realised when, on a rerouted journey from New York to Johannesburg I ended up on the Air France plane from Paris. I asked the steward where my seat was and he said that he would have to look at the map!

Meanwhile back in Durban at HEARD we have had an extremely successful year. I guess that one of the measures is the number of publications produced from the unit. These have shot up and it all the staff are productive. Although this is being led by one or two individuals this is okay. We ended the year with renewed funding for HEARD, which will take us through the next five years, which is really encouraging. Not as much money as before, but that too is a good thing as it means that the staff will have to write grants which are an important part of being a researcher.

At the end of the year we needed to restructure. This meant some downsizing and realignment of activities. Fortunately our new operations director, Samuel Gormley, has shown himself to be extremely able over the past six months. He joined us from Tafta, an old age Association which provides a considerable amount of residential accommodation for the elderly in Durban. He does not know a great deal about HIV and AIDS, although he is learning, but this is not a problem because we did not appoint on the basis of such knowledge. At the very end of 2010 we have made a further four new appointments and I believe that they will give the organization a wide range of strengths.

In Norwich the house and garden continue to give pleasure. My writing is most done here and it is a very conducive environment. Douglas turned 16 and completed his O’ levels. These are the first major public exams a child has to sit in the UK. I had not appreciated that they can also be the only exams in the public sector. Once you have turned 16 education becomes a privilege and not a right. Douglas did us proud. He got the passes that enabled him continue on to A levels. He has registered to do English, psychology, and history. Decades ago I did history, English, and geography A levels, so am pleased by his choice. He and I went to Belgium to look at the First World War battlefields and cemeteries, it was deeply moving and quite bonding experience. My father ran away from school, aged 15 or 16, to join up and serve in the trenches in this war so it was also something of a pilgrimage for me.

Rowan has a new job with an excellent book chain called Waterstones and so gave up her other shop job. She was delighted by this move and is thoroughly enjoying being surrounded by books. This gave rise to a moment which I am still savouring: she sent me a text saying, “Dad I have just sold a copy of your book to a customer”. I thought this was very cool indeed. She will complete her degree next year, before she turns 20 and some of her writing is exceptional.

I am left with just a paragraph to mention the low points of the year. There were not many, and tended to revolve round aircraft not leaving on time, loosing key members of staff, and the frustration of waiting for people to respond to letters and requests. Ironically we have faced problems with two of the organisations I am involved with in a voluntary, or service capacity. In both cases these issues were beyond our control. One was around exchange rates and the other about incompatible staff members. Both required careful thought and input to steady the ship and ensure there was certainty going forward.

In summary 2010 was a good year. I know I am a very fortunate person. I look forward to 2011 and will continue to put occasional posts on to my website along with photographs.

Football Madness Continues: Early July 2010

Posted on Saturday 10th July, 2010 by Alan Whiteside

This posting should go up soon after the World Cup semi finals, but before the final. It has been an amazing month both for me personally and for the country. My personal score card is four games in two stadia. The first was the England against the USA in Rustenburg on the 12th June. On the 23rd July I went to the Moses Madiba stadium in Durban for the Nigeria versus Korea game. Three days later I returned to see Portugal play Brazil, and on Monday 28th I saw Netherlands versus Slovakia. On Saturday 3rd July I joined friends at the Fan Park next to the Suncoast Casino to see the Germany Argentina game. In addition to this I have watched numerous games on the television in my flat or with friends.

It is hard to describe the events of the past month without getting emotional. The general consensus in South Africa was that we could (probably) deliver the World Cup and we have done so and exceeded out own wildest expectations. So far everything has gone smoothly, more smoothly than we believed possible. In part this is due to the way the event was built up by the Government and our media. There were extensive advertisements on the television telling us: the World Cup was coming, we should be gearing up to it, getting excited and preparing to welcome the many tourists flying to South Africa, for this once in lifetime event.

As time went on the message changed to say: ‘Ayoba: It is here’. After South Africa were defeated there was another switch in emphasis to say: “Well we didn’t get very far but let’s keep welcoming visitors and ensuring that they have a good time”.

I think we have succeeded. One concern was around crime, and it has been amazing how little there has been. The press reported on the first tourist to be shot (and wounded), an American walking in a very sketchy part of Johannesburg. I think we all have been taken aback, and people have just been lucky. I had two people from Sweden staying in the flat. One day they set off to walk into town, which I think is safe! They had just reached the Warwick Junction area when they were accosted by a lady driving through who said: “You can’t walk here. It is really dangerous. Get in the car at once”.

Sadly she then took them to the Suncoast Casino, which would not be my first choice of an environment for visitors. She also proposed that one of them, both being blonde Swedes, might be a perfect match for her son. Mind you I wonder about the some people and their naivety. A colleague had a ticket for the semi-final that he cant use. He gave it to a friend to sell. This person got a buyer, a Nigerian who took the ticket to ‘authenticate it’, and also took the bank details so he could deposit the money. I wonder how that story will turn out!

There has been flag waving patriotism. It has been enthusiastic and inclusive, when teams were knocked out their flags have continued to be flown on the cars and drivers have added second and third team national flags. At one point I estimated that one in five cars was flying a flag for someone. It has been a profitable time for the hawkers who operate at traffic lights. Instead of pineapples and coat hangers they have been selling flags and, something I have not seen before, mirror socks. These are little material socks which fit over the side mirror on vehicles. It has also been fascinating to how the nation has come together. All the crowds have been very multi-racial. At the Suncoast park the audience was largely Indian but there was a good smattering of visitors, mostly German fans and a number of black spectators.

I found the comment of a bright young white South Africa very telling. He said “Well we don’t expect to do well because we are not a soccer nation”. How typical that he should not understand that, for the majority of South Africans, we are a soccer nation. I really do think this will change.

What about the football? Of the games I have seen perhaps the most exciting was the Netherlands – Slovakian match. The stadium was packed with Dutch fans, who stood out in their bright orange jumpers and football shirts. They cheered their hearts out; the team played its heart out; and beat Slovakia. Then on Friday 2nd July they managed to knock the favorites, Brazil, out of the competition which was fantastic and now they are thought to the final. That match I watched at the gym, carefully taking my distance glasses so that I could be on the cross-trainer and actually see what was going on. I got there for the second half and the co-owner of the gym came to join me on the next machine. As a result we were able to get rid of the normal terrible music and listen to the commentary. That was a plus side, but I guess the minus side was that the gym was completely deserted. I think there were four people in the cardio section and another five in the rest of the building.

There will be huge economic benefits to South Africa. In the long-term we have invested in infrastructure which will serve us well for decades to come. In the short-term there is tourist money pouring into the country, and one has to recognize that there are some advantages in having the wealthy nations staying in the competition. It has been patchy though, I have been on aircraft that were virtually empty and others that have been jam-packed. I think that we overestimated the level of spending there would be. The other evening I went to one of the best restaurants in Durban, Fusion : there were only four people, and we outnumbered the staff. At the same time there have been sudden influxes of people, the airport at Port Elizabeth had more large aircraft on the hard standing than at any time in its history.

Things have not always worked perfectly, but when they went awry most people have been good humored. For example the Fan Park where I watched the Germany Argentina game, with all my German friends, had the live feed collapse just five minutes before the end of the match. At that point Germany were three nil ahead so we were pretty certain of the result. I was impressed by the good humor of the crowd both as they got up and left a little early, and as we navigated our way out of the ghastly Sun Coast Casino parking area, with its cones and tortuous routing to the exit.

Of course, this past month has not just been World Cup. On the 1st and 2nd of July we had our annual HEARD Retreat at a hotel called the Caledon near Ballito. This is a boutique hotel, one of the Life Group. I have written about them previously in my blog. I’m not impressed. It is situated inland and I am somewhat perplexed by its location. It will have to trade on something other than its non-proximity to the beach. It is in an area which seems to rapidly be developing into retirement villages and golf estates. It is, however, close to the new airport. The retreat was well facilitated and was helpful and useful to get an idea of where we will be going in the organization.

Back In Durban January – February 2010

Posted on Saturday 27th February, 2010 by Alan Whiteside

A quick look at my Website tells me that I haven’t posting anything for nearly two months. So let me bring you up to date with what I’ve been doing. Christmas and New Year were spent with the family in Norwich. It was cold but a lot of fun and generally enjoyed by all. My sister came up from London for the Christmas period but we were on our own for New Year.

Douglas and I spent a great deal of time working on various essays, reviews and other pieces of course work for his GCSE exams. This was productive and, I hope, bonding.

“Read it aloud, and if you have take a breath, it needs a comma or a full stop”, I kept repeating as we went through essays. I am afraid that the HEARD staff are getting the same treatment as I review their work.

Douglas and I also went to the gym together, and although he is not yet 16, we went to the exercise room instead of just the pool, sauna and steam room as we have done in the past. It was deeply interesting to sit beside him on the rowing machine and look in the mirror and see the similarities and differences. Would that I were his weight.

I returned to South Africa on 11th January. I actually delaying my journey by 24 hours as there was heavy snow and major disruptions on the Saturday and I thought it was not worth risking traveling by rail, (services are always disrupted on a Sunday anyway), and getting frustrated. The journey was quite straightforward, I got to Heathrow Airport at 5.15pm and asked the check-in staff if they could get me on the earlier flight, at 6.00 p.m. rather than at 8.30pm.

The lady asked me, “can you run”.

“Yes” I said.

I made it plane with plenty time although I didn’t stop to buy anything to read which was a bit of a pity.

It was good to get back to Durban, especially since winter has been unrelenting in the UK. My flat was spick and span courtesy of Madeline who acts as my personal PA and Angel the domestic worker; the office was set for me. I spent about week in the Durban before going to Cape Town for a Council for Foreign Relations meeting on “Rolling out treatment across South Africa”.

I now have more relatives in Cape Town as Derek my brother his wife Lynn and their three children, Emily, Sarah and Katie have emigrated to South Africa and are living in Hout Bay. I spent two nights in central Cape Town, went and had lunch with my uncle and aunt and then spent the Friday night with Derek. He is currently negotiating having teenage children who want to go to nightclubs in central Cape Town. I do not envy him. The family has a magnificent house in the valley in Hout Bay with a beautiful view of the mountains.

The main task in HEARD has been to get our new strategy document ready. This along with a business plan, budget and logframe (I really hate logframes and am glad we have an expert to prepare it) will form the basis of our request for funding for the next few years. We have had positive indications so I am confident that HEARD will continue at until 2014, and given the HIV prevalence rates in this part of world, it certainly should. Beyond that I would like to see more emphasis on health issues and not just HIV.

In the third week of January it was back to the UK, leaving Durban on a Friday and returning to it on the following Wednesday. The purpose of this meeting was to review five special papers from the aids2031 Project that are being prepared for publication in The Lancet. The meeting was organized by The Imperial College Group. It was extremely interesting and I was privileged to be part of a small high-powered group. My task was to look at the “drivers of the epidemic” paper written by a colleague, Justin Pathurst, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I liked reviewing it as I was able to have some fun with it.

I spent the weekend in Norwich with the family and, apart from being rather tired, enjoyed it greatly. I went to London on the Monday back to Norwich on the Tuesday and flew to South Africa on the Wednesday.

One irritation was that on the way over I had watched a film “Secondhand Lions” with Michael Caine and Robert Duval. It was made in 2003 and is described as a ‘coming of age’ movie. The story is set in the mid-West and tells of a boy who is sent to live with his uncles by his rather scatty mother. These old men have led amazing lives the film is about their developing relationship. It is well worth watching and I thought I was going to enjoy it. However an hour and nine minutes into the film the picture and sound went out of synchronization. It was impossible to watch. Having had a sufficiency of wine I decided quite simply to go to sleep as it seemed pointless despite numerous attempts at resetting the seat to watch it.

I was delighted, on the return trip, to see that the in-flight entertainment system was showing the same films and looked forward to now watching this movie through to the end. I got a glass of wine, fast-forwarded the video and at the appropriate time pressed play. You can imagine my dismay when the same thing happened.

I think I was on the same aeroplane. This makes sense, it would have taken me over on the Friday, returned to South Africa on Saturday, to England on the Sunday, to South Africa on the Monday, to London on the Tuesday and then been there on the Wednesday to bring me back. I watched another film, a mindless thriller called “The Whole Nine Yards”. On Saturday I went to the local DVD store and got a copy of the video took it home and watched the last half hour.

Since getting back to Durban I have been extremely busy with HEARD management. This is the third weekend in a row that I have worked. Being here lends itself to physical activity and I have been engaged in squash and going to the gym. My gym is curious place because it is mainly inhabited by serious fitness people who do not look at each other, other than to correct posture or weight lifting. We collectively feel this is a place to get fit not to pose. Their website is http://www.fitnesscompany.co.za/FC_home.php I have had a trainer at the gym, (yes a personal trainer), for some years now and when I work in a sustained manner with him I do see the weight and inches falling off. His name is Wade and being weighed by Wade is always an interesting process. He is only allowed to train out of hours or at lunch time. He does train me on a Sunday afternoon with permission from the owners. The gym is officially open from 4.30 to 6.30pm but we meet at 3.15 and I have the entire place to myself. I realized the other day that this is pretty cool, and I can choose the music. I think I am going to a Dolly Parton CD in to train to!

It is the height of summer in Durban and the temperature has been 30 degrees and more during the day. The flat is on the top floor and as a result it tends to be rather warmer than the ones below. Fortunately it has air-conditioning units in the lounge and bedroom. We recently had a power failure. This was a real pain as it meant that I was unable work or run the air-conditioner. I also discovered I did not have any matches to light my candles. I had to go to one of few smokers in the block to get a light.

Summer also means that the sun rises at about 5.00am. One morning I woke at 4.30 and despite trying to go back to sleep could not. I got up at 5.00 put on my running shorts and shoes and ran for 40 minutes. I go straight up the hill along and then down and then gradually back. I know I am not running fit because the route that normally takes me 35 minutes took me 38 this morning. I had to walk up the steepest hill at the end which was a blow to my pride.

Film, Books and Blogs: December 2009

Posted on Sunday 20th December, 2009 by Alan Whiteside

This will be the last posting for 2009. I will begin by wishing everyone a happy end of 2009 and a good 2010. This is not going to be a reflective post; that will be the first one of the New Year, when I have had a chance to get my head around the events of 2009. In this I will mainly reflect on the films I have seen and the books read over the past few months. I travelled from Durban to Vancouver and then back to the UK in mid-November which meant I saw quite a number of films.

The reflection to end the year is that I can fly but landing is still beyond me. I have had two lessons in the last week and have to say this landing business is more difficult than I thought it would be. After going round a few times and managing to touch down and have one ‘go-around’ which is when one aborts the landing without touching the tarmac, I was really battling. David, the instructor, took over and showed how easy it is for him while I was left feeling really frustrated. I can manage most of the landing – the turning, lining up and approach; it is the last 50 feet that I am finding really tough. The idea is that a point you fly above the runway taking off the power and holding the nose up until the plane gently touches down, and I am just not able to judge it. David says that everyone finds this and then it will suddenly come right. I hope this is true.

Perhaps the only thing I want to put in is that I am in the UK for Christmas and New Year. On 11th January I get back to Durban which is where I will be staying for the next few months. There is a great deal of management that needs to be done, and I also have the political economy of Swaziland which needs to be completed. I have finally returned to this and am enjoying getting my head around Swaziland and what a unique little nation it is. There will have to be some time spent up there doing fieldwork as well.

Films

“Departures”. This Japanese film, made in 2008, is the winner of a number of prizes including the Academy Award as Best Foreign Language film. It is the story of a cellist, whose orchestra closes. He and his wife move to a house that his mother left him and he begins looking for work. He sees an advertisement to work with ‘departures’, and thinking it is something to do with travel agent, applies and get the job. He discovers he is to be a “nokanshi” or professional who prepares bodies for burial and ‘encoffins’ them. The nokanshi carries rituals in front of the family: kneeling on one side, with the family is on the other; they carefully wash and prepare the body for burial or cremation.

The story is moving. It is about the relation between the hero, his somewhat irascible boss, and the deceased. I felt, were someone to have to do these rituals for me, then he is the sort of sensitive person one wants. The characters are deep and the music excellent.

“Taking Woodstock”. This is as told by Elliot Teichberg. As a young man he was working at his parent’s motel in Bethel, New York, involved in the local Chamber of Commerce, and had organized a number of cultural events. He was in charge of issuing public events’ permits and when he discovered that the organizers of the Woodstock Festival had been denied authority to hold the event in the village of Walkill, he issued them a permit. The Festival was held on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm, the rest is history.

It was a touching film, gentle in its approach to the event and, while probably not historically accurate, it was good fun. The film did not have any of the music, just covering events in the run-up to the Festival. Teichberg’s parents appear as two failing Jewish business people, out of place and time. All characters are parodied including the ‘earth-life’ acting troupe.

South African Airways shows South African films, and I have seen two.

“My Secret Sky” was made by Madoda Ncayiyana with Julie Fredrickse (co-producer and writer). I’ve known about this film for some time as Julie came to talk to me as she was developing it. I hope I was helpful in giving her background and thoughts. It is the story is of two children, 10-year old Thembe and her 8-year old brother, Kwezi. They are orphaned in a rural area outside Durban when their mother dies (implicitly of AIDS). The family gathers to bury the mother and the children are left in the care of an aunt who sells all their possessions and is portrayed as a drunken, grasping woman.

The children take a woven mat that their mother has made, (she was hoping to enter it in a competition), and set off for the city of Durban. Here they become involved with street children, in particular one called ‘Chili-bite’ who tries to sell the girl to a taxi-driver involved with pedophilia. There are gaps in the story line which I forgive because it is set in Durban. We see the steam train that, on a Sunday takes tourists from Pinetown to the Valley of a Thousand Hills; look at Warwick Junction with its hustle and bustle; see the Durban city streets the Embankment, a fantastic view across the bay and the sleazy underpass where the children live; finally there is the Musgrave road Anglican church.

The film tells of children being left on their own and facing great adversity. It is, for me, best a film that portrays areas and people I know as well as the real issues faced by growing numbers of children as a result of HIV/AIDS. It is an accurate picture of a thriving port city and how people, especially youngsters may fall through the cracks in this setting. I will certainly look for it on DVD.

“White Wedding”. This is fun. It tells of the journey of Elvis, by Greyhound bus from Johannesburg to Durban, to meet up with his best friend Tumi. Together they travel on to Cape Town for his wedding. Tumi is to be his best man and Elvis is to marry Ayanda in the Cape at a fancy hotel at Camps Bay.

The story is set in various locations. Ayanda is in Cape Town, the city and a township; we see Tumi and Elvis in Durban and the Eastern Cape. Their journey involves borrowing a car after Tumi’s girl friend wrecks his BMW. As they travel through the Eastern Cape they pick up a young English doctor who is hitchhiking (very unwisely all the South Africans would think). They wreck the car and end up in a rightwing, white stronghold in the Cape. Through charm and good manners they get a ride to Cape Town from one of the real Afrikaners.

This is “appealing feel good movie about love, commitment, intimacy and friendships and the host of maddening obstacles that can get in the way of a happy ending”. The writer/director is Jaan Turner, the daughter of Rick Turner who was assassinated in Durban. The executive producer is Ken Follet the author. They have done an excellent job in making this film, picking up on South Africa and what goes on there and making a thoroughly enjoyable film. The beauty of the landscape is well portrayed but I sincerely hope that no one tries hitchhiking through South Africa as the young doctor does.

I am not going to review it but want to say I really enjoyed the latest Coen brothers’ offering ‘Serious Man’. It has not been out very long and I found it very dark. There is humour in it, and I would say it does for small town Jewish communities what ‘District Nine’ did for apartheid South Africa and the bureaucracy.

Books

Over the past nine months or so I have read the new series of the Millennium Trilogy written by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. There are three books in the series “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, “The Girl Who Played With Fire”, and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest”. These are a publishing sensation, numbers 3, 8 and 12 on the Amazon best seller list (my “HIV/AIDS Very Short Introduction” has been as low as 15000 and currently is 135 000). The English version is by published by Maclehose Press. The key characters in the books are Lisbet Salanader and Mikael Blomkvist. Salander is a faintly autistic young woman, excellent with computers in the first book as a hacker she finds her way into a range of databases and saves the skin of the main character; in the last she is charged with attempted murder. There are other characters who are well developed. The Swedish detective, the editor of Millennium Magazine and in the final book Blomkvist’s sister. These three books are a monumental achievement and have been extremely well translated. Sadly the author Steve Larsson died after delivering them to the publisher and before they were published which means he never saw the outcome of his work. They are recommended as good holiday reading.

In the weekly Mail and Guardian of a few weeks ago there was a very interesting article about South African crime writing. The one author described well was Margie Orford who’s first book was called “Like Clockwork”. The book is published by Jonathon Ball Publishers and is set in Cape Town particularly around Green Point and Sea Point. It is the story of a serial killer who’s also involved in the trafficking of women. Orford describes Cape Town evocatively. Her main character is a psychologist/documentary filmmaker called Clare Hart but there are a range of other characters from the new South Africa who are well described in this book. The second in the series is “Blood Rose” and is set in Namibia in Walvis Bay. These are edgy books and they reflect the society well including AIDS and its consequences. The shady characters, especially the street children are particularly well described.

Cessna’s In Durban

Posted on Wednesday 25th November, 2009 by Alan Whiteside

I wrote something for my Website and decided that it was not good enough. I may use what I wrote in another format and somewhere else, but it means that I am rather behind in my news.
There was an interesting experience a few weeks ago. Coming from London the plane left a bit late. Just before the cabin doors closed the person sitting next to me took out a cell phone and proceeded to have a long conversation. We were asked to switch our phones off, she carried on talking. The steward walked passed and said, “Madam please will you put your phone off?” As we taxied she talked. The cabin-crew member came and asked her to switch it off. She said, “of course” but carried on talking! The steward came back and again saying: “if you don’t switch it off we will have to stand until you have”. She finished her conversation, reached into her voluminous bag, and took out four other cell phones, which she proceeded to switch off one after the other. His eyebrows rose into his hairline.

I returned to South Africa via a meeting in Brussels. This was on global health governance and the right to health, organized by Gorik Ooms, an interesting Belgian trained as a lawyer and now an academic after heading MSF in Belgium. The one slight downer for me was that on the Monday night I was violently ill. I would like to think it was the seafood I had but suspect that the alcohol combined with homeopathic sleeping pills may have had something to do with it. It is an uncomfortable feeling to be crouched over a toilet bowl and the number of stars the hotel has makes little difference.

The time in Durban has comprised one full week in the office and two where I made side visits. The first was to attend a Medecins Sans Frontieres meeting in Swaziland. The discussion was around TB and AIDS and particularly the new multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extra-drug resistant (XDR) TBs that are emerging in the region. What was particularly troubling was to learn that having no treatment is better for avoiding drug resistance than having treatment that is not adequate. This makes sense, of course, you have to have some form of treatment for drug resistance to develop and that is what is being seen in Southern Africa. The meeting was organized by Medecins Sans Frontieres and what also became clear to me is that is an uneasy alliance between Government and this organization: they are doing what Government should be doing but doesn’t have the resources to do. Additionally there are issues around the sustainability of such interventions and what will happen when MSF goes. The philosophy underlying MSF activities is to get involved for a medium-term period when there are no options and this is what they have done.

I have done rather more flying that I should and guess that getting on an airplane on the 15th and going to Vancouver will not help my global climate change karma. So some thoughts about Durban. I managed to get one flying lesson here. We flew from Virginia Airport which is a small strip mainly handling light aircraft, in the northern part of the city, and right next to the beach. The aircraft was a Cessna 152. I handled it reasonably well but unfortunately it is the windy season here in Durban and the gusts were too strong for me to land.

It is very different flying from Virginia than it was from Norwich, oddly this airport is far busier; does not have a radar system for them to know where you are; and has a tighter circuit than Norwich. All this means that flying here is actually more challenging than it has been in the UK. I plan to will mix and match my lessons although I suspect that going solo will be easier in the UK than it is here because the runway is so much bigger. In addition there are lights to guide you in in Norwich, Durban does not have this.

One of the interesting things about telling people I am learning to fly is discovering how many others have either done some lessons, have friends who have learnt, or who want to. My optician took 24 lessons and was just about to go solo before he gave up. He said it was because two of the instructors at the flying school had crashes.

My major busyness in Durban has centered round responding to the HEARD mid-term review, which was carried between June and September. This is absolutely critical for ensuring that we obtain funding going into the future and was a 64-page document with 15 recommendations to responded to. I was delighted by the way the HEARD team came together to assist in the response. They were truly remarkable. The first part of the response was drafted by one and another five read and re-read the document to get it exactly right. I finished reading it in the dentist’s waiting room and it has gone off. What a relief. It doesn’t mean that we are out of the woods as far as work and busyness goes; that will carry on into the New Year as we prepare new memoranda, a work plan and think about the long-term strategy. Nonetheless it is an important milestone and a big step forward.

So I got back to Durban. What is it like being back? Well I had forgotten the noise of the traffic on Moore Road (which has been renamed as Che Guevara Road). This is very loud in my bedroom. I had to go to sleep with earplugs. Mind you this is not as bad as the first night I moved in. On that evening there was burst water main about 100 meters from my bedroom and the entire night was spent to the sound of drills and excavators as the city corporation set about fixing it. It was a nightmare.

In the morning there are the birds that start chirping at 4.00 in the trees outside, the sun begins to rise at about 4.30 and when I get up at 5.30 and looked out of my window I could see my jacaranda tree is full bloom. There have been a mixture of rainy and wet, and beautiful sunny days. Spring is wonderful.

I was driving back from town the other day when I really took notice of the evangelical marquee used by an evangelical church in Albert Park in the city. Having just been in other capitals it is striking how evangelical preacher’s tents are springing up like mushrooms on waste ground across the cities of southern Africa.

Alan Whiteside

Applied academic and explorer of ideas

Tag Archives: Durban

Relativity

Deaths and Departures April 2012

Prime Circle: Easter 2011

On The Road Again: March 2011

Slow Durban: January 2011

Football Madness Continues: Early July 2010

Back In Durban January – February 2010

Film, Books and Blogs: December 2009

Cessna’s In Durban