World AIDS day

World AIDS Day December 1st 2009.

Somehow I did not make it to a single World AIDS day commemoration. I was working at green and white building, learning how to use the CSPro Language. It was fun.

We had a few laughs later on about Private hospitals that had no laboratories according to our census, but that will be resolved tomorrow.

I went to a talk advertised by the Namibian Scientific Society. My mother tells me it is dominated by whites and when I arrived, I was one of two non-white people. There was another black dude there, about my age and it turns out he was not a random audience member but a student doing research with the speaker Steve Bellan from USCF
I had wanted to talk with the presenter Steve Bellan before I arrived at his presentation. It was really a crisp presentation and I really enjoyed it, I loved being talked to and being explained to about science. Steve does work on anthrax and carcasses of the zebras claimed by the Bacillus anthracis. His problem is to figure out the incidence of anthrax in Etosha National park in Namibia. I really liked his thinking – he pointed out that just because most of the anthrax carcasses are found within the proximity of the Okakuejo rest camp in Etosha is not necessarily indicative of clustering of anthrax deaths. The most likely explanation is reporting bias – most of the scientists collect data within the vicinity of the rest camp and not deep in the park where they are no roads. He spoke about detectability analysis, which sounds interesting and I will look it. I must make an effort to do it and just say I will.

Steve is really young, and he is a grad student, which is not what I envisioned before coming to his talk. But I am sure he did not envision meeting me there either. I braced myself for talk given in the American style, which is a story, something that I miss since graduating from Princeton. So I went up to him and said “Thank you so much for your talk, they are so few scientific talks here, even at the University here.”
I went on to tell him about my interests in epidemiology, which is what Steve studies. In fact he uses mathematical methods in epidemiology and he spoke of these in his talk, though briefly. Though I feel he could have gone into serious depth, I feel cool that he gave us a feel of what he does, rather than inundating us with esoteric methods.

“I did a course in mathematical methods of ecology in my senior year, but I could not pay so much attention to it because of my thesis”, I told him, though I could have just said I wish I was better organized so that I could have done better at this grad course. Then came the moment of revelation, when he probed : “Did you do this at UNAM?” Given the infrastructures of our small African country, with our young University and our small scientific society with very few members I too would have doubted that mathematical methods of ecology were available at UNAM. “No I said, at Princeton”.
“Princeton?” he immediately replied “I went to Princeton too.” What followed was a rather dispassionate exchange where I asked his class year (2006), who did his thesis with (can’t remember) and a handshake. I say it was dispassionate because I did not shout “You went to Princeton too! Wow the world is small! We will be in touch!” and because he spoke very normal, though with a sharp focus.
Then again, Steve was warm to me from outset, when I first approached him. He gave me his email before he found out we both walked out of Fitz-Randolph gate and told me about the workshop he does in May. He jut radiated friendliness and approachability.
As I said Steve, we will be in touch.