Its been hard to find time to write lately. We spent 3 days in Dakar; hardly left the hotel so I’m not in any position to comment on Dakar, other than to say it is MUCH more cosmopolitan than anything in Burkina – high rise buildings, traffic jams, smog – the whole 9 yards. The food was really good, and women dress very well. The hotel had a beautiful, large pool overlooking the ocean.
But, as geeky as it is… the highlight of the time in Dakar was the work. We made lots of great contacts with people working on various HIV projects across West Africa; some really innovative, others very much needed. The participants were all passionate about decreasing the burden of HIV on the population, whether their role was community mobilization or scientific studies. We made lots of great contacts. Really inspiring people working amazingly hard to lessen the effects of the disease on their community.
In the interest of disclosure… the meeting was a Bristol Myers Squibb sponsored one, and we spent much of the time with the president of the BMS foundation – a guy with control of more money than I will be able to even imagine (the Secure the Future grants, just one small part of his money to give away, was $115 million). Its weird, and not always completely comfortable to think about that my salary and much of my budget comes from “big pharma” (it goes against my social justice bent)… but, to be honest, I am really grateful for how strongly they feel about AIDS in Africa, and how much they believe in us and our program.
A highlight was Île Gorée, which was one of the slave trading outposts… a world of contrasts, of physical beauty with palm trees and white sand beaches with the terrible history of people’s inordinate cruelty against one another. The poverty of the islanders with the tourists who walk through every day.
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