August 2008

Mwanza – Wao!

[above: Kabula on the left and smiling at the camera, and Katega on the right focusing on her drawings][above: the view of the Mwanza valley in the mid-afternoon from the veranda next to my hotel room at Tai Five. I have no idea why this hotel is called Tai Five since it’s supposedly Tanzanian-owned, though …

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Kahama: Dude Town from Hell

[above: dude carrying a load of sponge-bed-square-pants mattresses for one of the many motels for migrant miners along the main road in Kahama] Kahama is a dusty dry dude town on the highway to Rwanda and Burundi, between Tinde and Bukombe. Its existence depends on gold mining, and all of its industry is built around …

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a day in the life…

[above: HIV Care and Treatment Refresher Training participants, trainers and UCSF help-staff (i.e. the team i work with in Tanzania) in Shinyanga, picture taken on 15 August at the Ngoloko Hostel, Catholic Arch Diocese centre; this was a historic Refresher training because all of the direct trainers were Tanzanian and a majority of the training …

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Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan in Tanzania!

[above left: Tanzanian stamp honoring The Scholar and the Athlete, Bruce Lee… and above right: Tanzanian stamp sheet honoring Jackie Chan (The Clown and the Athlete?)] Yes, my people are AWEsome. My colleague Elitumaini told me the other day that Tanzanians view Chinese people as friends. “We have been a socialist country, and so for …

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Even the Yellow Ones!

Bukombe is a trip. It’s a diamond and gem mining town in the interior of Tanzania, on the road towards the Rwanda and Burundi borders from Nzega and Shinyanga. Because this region is built around the mining industry, it’s filled with young men from all different parts of Tanzania (and other East African countries) who …

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