Filed under: chile, development, food, international relations, santiago, south america, travel
My first morning in Chile I awoke feeling dizzy and nauseous. At first I recalled my doctor had said I might suffer from altitude sickness in the Andes, then I came to my senses and realised I hadn’t eaten for more than 24 hours. After devouring a muesli bar and some macadamia nuts that weren’t confiscated at customs, we ventured into the street.
I was still alarmed by the fast traffic that zipped past. Evidently highway proximity doesn’t have the same negative real estate effect it does in Australia, as we were opposite the Hyatt and next to a five-star hotel, where men in top hats and red coats were escorting people out of their vehicles.
We crossed a pedestrian bridge and arrived where our landlord recommended we have breakfast, which turned out to be a giant shopping mall, similar to but plusher than those found in Adelaide or Calgary. It began with a large plaza where about a dozen restaurants were open for breakfast. These were no cheap Latino eateries, in fact it was hard to find a word of Spanish. There were half a dozen named in English, while the rest were a mix of French and Italian. I was flabbergasted; we may as well have been in North America. For our first breakfast in South America I had a crepe and Tim had a panini, both with espressos.
We discussed cultural imperialism over breakfast, but perhaps it would be fairer to say globalisation. As much as it seems easy to blame the United States, the restaurants were generally Italian, French or Japanese inspired. Australia has a similar lack of distinct cuisine; our culinary strengths come from multiculturalism. I wonder if foreigners visiting Australia are disappointed by the lack of a distinct local cuisine? I’ve always appreciated living somewhere with such variety, enjoying visiting places like Italy and Vietnam where reliably distinct dishes dominate, but inevitably tiring of the homogeneity. Yet finding such variety here after expecting cultural immersion was unsettling.
After breakfast we wandered the mall for a while, where my surprise continued. They have Zara and Topshop and United Colors of Benetton! I needn’t miss European fashion either. This is certainly not a developing country like most of its neighbours. Granted, thanks to a mixup by our landlord we were in one of Santiago’s ritziest neighbourhoods, so this is not typical of Chile. But it is Chile nonetheless. I’d reassured wary older relatives that Chile was a first-world country, in the OECD, safe enough. I’m not sure I really believed it, but I do now.
After wandering we returned outside only to stumble upon a Boost juice. If I was shocked before I was floored now. This business founded in Adelaide had extended to Santiago! How could we not support a local business gone global? So we sipped our juices while looking in the window of the Quiksilver shop next door.
I was rather relieved we were only in Viticura for one night, because as Tim observed, we hadn’t flown halfway around the world to do the same things we do at home.
Most of the conference was at the university in Malmö, a town most notable for the oddly shaped tower, pictured (with a colleague who I managed to persuade to jump for the photo, despite strong reluctance).
Malmö is certainly no Stockholm, and is in the process of redevelopment. But it has a beautiful old town centre that is pretty happening of a midsummer evening, as well as the aforementioned twisted tower, portside.
Filed under: africa, development, england, events, london, news, poverty, science, society
Karimba Primary School, by AP6.
Last week I was in London to report on the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s centenary conference, called, ‘Meeting the Millennium Development Goals’.
Professor Estambale from the University of Nairobi talked about whether preventing malaria in schoolchildren helped them learn better (you can read my story on it here).
He talked about the design of the study and his results. In explaining his figures for why not all the children recruited to receive treatment were tested afterwards, he said matter-of-factly, “three of them died”, and continued to explain why other children were not in the final figures.
I had one of those stop-life moments. Three of them died! Here was a man in London explaining his scientific results, just like so many other scientists, but he had to factor in that some of his study participants died. And this was in the group that received treatment! There were more in the placebo group. The deaths weren’t anything to do with his study – it’s just that in Africa, children die, for all sorts of reasons.
Of course we all know that children in Africa die all the time, but it was one of those moments that brought it home to me. I imagine all of the people I know working in science in developed countries who design studies, worrying about so many different factors, trying to recruit enough volunteers – imagine if some of them just died? Halfway through your study, they die for completely unrelated reasons, which you then factor into your results.
I guess it was also shocking because I associate African children dying as flyblown toddlers suffering from malnutrition, not school-age children, ready to sit tests at the end of the term so they can move on in life. I’ve never been a starving toddler (good work mum), but I have been a primary school kid cruising along through childhood, like the kids in the study.
It’s unimaginable that school kids could ever just die matter-of-factly in Western Europe. Needless to say, we have to stop it happening in other parts of the world.
