Durbang.

So bloggees, it has been a week since I last posted, but I have a good excuse; I have been living it up in the big city. Yes, after 5 weeks here, Deyo and I cracked and headed for Durban. We were also booked on to an HIV/TB/STD course, as an aside.
The 5 hour drive down was a testing time (I re-discovered that I have a Y-chromosome when it comes to being directed; "what do you mean, 'I think this street leads in to that one', you have the map" and "why are you turning the map around?") but we finally arrived at our hostel late Thursday evening.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent on the course learning the theories of diagnosis and management (I say theory as the concept of holding off TB treatment until you have a positive culture, when cultures take 6 weeks to come back and the patient in the meantime is infecting the 12 people they live with is just not practical) by day (with a couple of early finishes which allowed us to hit the beach...) and getting to know the other doctors and the bars of Durban by night. Was interesting meeting other doctors, many of whom are also foreigners working in rural hospitals, and comparing notes, but also frustrating at how common some of our experieneces are.
The weekend also provided us with our first true SA experience when our hostel was robbed (despite the electric security gate). Fortunately our room was left untouched but it reminded us that as protected as we are in Ingwa, where we can leave our door open, the rest of SA is still risky. A scary reminder to be fore-front in our minds as we drove back up our little pot-holed road to Ingwavuma in the pitch black. And blew a tyre. Now, I pride myself on knowing the theory of tyre changing, but in the pitch dark I was less sure. And just as we were debating how much damage it could do to the government car if we drove an hour home with a flattie, a car pulled up. An even rapider debate occurred as to whether we ought to flat wheel-spin off (both Deyo and I were thinking of all the assault and rape cases we've seen in the last 5 weeks) but another car also stopped and a total of 5 very friendly Zulu men surrounded our car, sympathised with our situation, were amazed that we actually had a spare tyre and rapidly sorted us out. A very pleasantly surprising outcome, but not one we shall rely on.
As we invest in our own car, I think we'll be investing in a hefty torch and some decent breakdown cover!