I've really struggled, actually, not to make my reporting sound depressing over the last few days. There're only so many ways you can say HIV and AIDS is killing people here; they've only just got the drugs we've had for years in the UK to keep people alive and well longer (they hope to treat a thousand people at Umlazi hospital by February - a thousand! - more than a quarter of the half a million strong township is thought to have the virus!), and in the meantime they're doing their best with very little.

Is there anything a little less upsetting to talk about? the editors ask. Well, there's a lovely model village on the sea-front at Durban.. just along from an all-singing all-dancing hospital where they carry out transplants and treat the white, private patients with those very same drugs..? Agapanthus grow by the roadside in their hundreds? The singing is fantastic?

I was a bit blase, actually, coming here. Oh, I've been reporting HIV statistics for years. I've been to World Conferences on the subject. I've talked to people in London's hospitals where the relatively few who now die are treated. I've seen the pictures. I can't believe I fell into such a stereotypical trap. The majority of people here in Umlazi's streets look well. Poor, but well. In the hospital, people wait, patiently, to hear the results of their HIV tests, with their babies strapped to their backs, but they are dignified, polite. Some of their homes are made of mud, cardboard, tin. But a lot are brick, very clean, with swept porches and a few banana trees in front. The black people of South Africa are keen to talk to me. They want to know about me. Ridiculous. The children want to see a picture of my children. They're really interested in what the UK think of them. Why am I here?