python newbie

[Maura E Monville]

My supervisor has palmed me off with a python code, written by a collaborator, which implements an algorithm aimed at denoising the dose distribution (energy per unit mass) output from a radiation transport Monte Carlo code.
My task is to translate the python code into a MatLab code.
A colleague of mine and I stared at the python code for a while without understanding the logic. 
To me that code looks like Chinese or Arabian.
I don't have clear ideas about the syntax and python variables. For instance, in MatLab there is the cell array storage type to host data of different type. I have no idea how a 3D matrix can be loaded through python.
Does a debugger exist for python code ?
Is there an easy concise user's manual ?

Thank you in advance for any help.
Regards,
maura