Gooooing to Winnipeg!

Here I am in rainy, dreary Winnipeg. I'm on a lunch break waiting for the next event. Despite the wet weather here, the unfortunate lack of hot water in my hotel, and the fact that my flight here was delayed by over an hour, I am having a blast! It started with the flight (once I actually got on it!) where I got to sit at the front with my legs stretched out in front of me. I spent some quality time with my book, then fell asleep for the rest of the flight. The taxi ride to the hotel has definitely been a highlight so far. The driver is from the Sudan, and he has just published a book on village life in Africa. We got on the topic by him telling me all the festivals Winnipeg has in the summer, one of which is similar to our Heritage Days in Edmonton. He went on to talk about the importance of experiencing other culturs and enhancing your world view - the basis of his boook is the moment in his childhood when he realized there was life beyond his village. I'ver got his website and will definitely read his book.

This morning I walked to the Health Sciences Centre for the first day of the conference. It was a nice walk....Winnipeg feels a lot like Edmonton, only a bit smaller and a bit older. In fact, I forgot I was even in Winnipeg a couple of times. I had some problems getting my poster up. The velcroe was only sticking on one side and the thumb-tacks I had the forsight to bring in the event of velcroe failure kept popping out of the board. I felt myself getting frustrated, but then I would just look at my poster and remember Uganda and all the obstacles I faced there, and then I realized that this was not a big deal. Evenutally I got the damn poster to stay. Several other people didn't bring tacks, so I was a bit of a heroine, the tack-supplier.

I had my judging first thing this morning with two basic scientists whose first language was not English (isn't that a nice way of saying it?). It was a bit frustrating, but at the end of my talk they asked very good questions, so I know they understood me. After that was over, I felt free to be able to sit back and enjoy everything.

I spent the entire morning at "the lab" - the only level 4 containment lab in Canada, and the only facility housing both animal and human labs/pathogens in the world. It houses every single major deadly pathogen known to man, including ebola/marburg, lassa fever, some of the hanta viruses, etc. It was pretty damn exciting. Inside the labs just looked like labs - what was so fascinating was all the containment and security measures in place. Since they obviously couldn't take us in to the level 4 area, they showed us a video on how you first enter the low-pressure containment area, inflate your space suit, get into your space suit, and hook into your oxygen supply. They communicate to each other and to the control office by radios inside the suits. As exciting as the whole thing sounds, to have to spend your whole day in one of those things (it takes 20 minutes!) would be a huge pain in the ass, I think. We also got to see the area below the labs where are all of the waste goes to get decontaminated. We went above the labs as well to see the hepa filters where all of the air coming out of the labs gets filtered before leaving - the entire building has extremely clean air.

The building has this central communications office with 12 big TV screens where they moniter global outbreaks and all the major news channels. It is also very high security, and no papers are allowed to come out of there. It either stays in the room or gets shredded. We also got the see "the store". Before getting dressed in your suit (or scrubs, if you're working in a level 3 area) you go to pick out your underwea, bras, and scrubs. They have every brand, in every size. Isn't that insane? All personnel have to shower before leaving the containment area, and they also supply whatever kind of shampoo you want (I should've asked if they have Aveda).

Everything about this building is smart - from the way they mixed and poured the concrete to make sure there would be no pinholes or cracks, to the way they didn't tile the ceiling to ensure easy access to fix things, to the way they arranged things so that you could replace a broken lightbulb from above without having to actually go into the lab. It was a neat tour.

And of course I've made some friends. I've met a girl who did her undergrad at the UoA and liked my poster because she had recently been on an East African tour. I met another girl from Dalhousie who is just finishing her PhD and wants to come to Edmonton for her postdoc. And I've met this hilarious guy from UBC who also did a project on TB. And to top it all off, I ran into someone I did my undergrad with. It was strange running in to her - I haven't seen her in 8 years, but I think of her often. She said the same thing. We have plans to meet up tomorrow.

So it's been good. I have to head off now - it's a tour of the city, then a river boat cruise. Ciao!