I have been a rotten blogger recently. So much… Quick resume.
We are still treating in Durban, with Clive running treatments, and talking to lots of people who want to do it, who are nervous. We aren’t running the tests we would like to run because we aren’t happy with the labs, but so far, everyone feels and looks much much better.
I am sitting in Doha airport, Qatar. I can’t remember if I talked of the last time I was here, making a second trip to South Africa. This time, I am on my way to India. To Goa, to a wedding. I am excited. It is the first time I will have been to India, and I have always wanted to go. My mother had very close Indian friends, and on rare trips to England, they came to see us, bringing me gorgeous bracelets that brightened a Nottinghamshire childhood. Once, a box of mangoes arrived at Christmas. How our world has changed, when any local Tesco’s stocks mangos for 75p.
Last time I was here it was Ramadan, and the airport was quiet and deserted. I didn’t realise that it had shops. Today it is bustling, colourful, and much more like most airports anywhere. But of course, the ethnic mix is different from Heathrow or Schippol, and I love it. There is a man in front of me in turban and business suit, beautifully dressed, and bare feet. I can see into the mosque, in which there are 20 or so men lying on the floor, as well as a few on their knees, obviously praying. The mosque seems an attractive place to be.
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| Lighting candles in a Portuguese church in Goa, India |
I am hoping that I will meet Father Joe Perreira, of the Kripa Foundation, http://www.kripafoundation.org/ a close friend of my host. The Kripa Foundation runs community-based programmes for addicts - alcohol, heroin. Many of them are HIV+. India has the largest number of people infected with HIV, at 5.7 million. Like South Africa, a great deal of stigma attaches ot the disease.
Footnote, the estimate of India’s HIV infected population has recently been lowered, to 2.3 million, making it the country with the 4th highest no of infections. You will gather than the business of estimating infection is not yet exact.
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