AIDS week

All of Tabora is in a spin over the President's (alleged) visit which is (allegedly) to occur today or tomorrow to celebrate national AIDS week. Tabora is the region on which the celebrations are concentrated this year so there is a big festival-type deal going on at a nearby oval. The last two days have been insanely frustrating and have really revealed to me how people go nuts trying to get anything done in Africa. Yesterday there was a neverending trek between the District Commissioner's office and HAPO in order to get permission for us to take photographs of the President's (alleged) visit. No, they said, you cannot take photographs as you are not Tanzanian. But, you can give your cameras to members of the Tanzanian press corpss and THEY can take photographs using your camera. Tempting as it was to hand over our cameras to total strangers, we declined this option. Anyway, here are some more pics.

This is my bedroom - the novelty of the mosquito net has started to wear off a little, especially when I forget its there and get tangled up trying to get out of bed without untucking it first (this tends to happen in the middle of the night)

And, this is the family of Christina which I visited yesterday to make sure Mama Christina was all right. Last week I went with Sheki to check on her as Christina said she had been sick for two weeks. When we got to the house she could barely stand up, let alone walk. I asked why she hadn't been to hospital and she said she was waiting to get together some money for a taxi. We bundled her into our cab (with her younger sister who had the youngest baby strapped to her) and took her to the hospital, where I gave her ten dollars and told her to buy medicine. When we went back yesterday she was her usual smiley self and said she had had a very bad case of malaria. Anyway, here is the family.