bugs

I think the worst thing about being in Tanzania are the insects, especially the mosquitoes. I could tell you the number of times I've been bitten by mosquitoes since I got here if I bothered to count the large, swollen red lumps that cover my legs. I have no interest in counting them, since I have the sneaking suspicion that knowing exactly how many there were would make them all itch even more than they do already. The worst is on my feet. Stupid, cowardly ankle bitters! The government is considering using DDT to control the mosquito problem. At first, I was appalled by the idea, but after waking up 3-4 times each night to reapply hydrocortizone to my bites, I'm beginning to be swayed to the environmental dark side. After all, the environmental issues in the US weren't just caused by using DDT, they were caused by using huge amounts of DDT and dumping it from airplanes on everything field we could find. Using small, controlled amounts of DDT may prove to be a life saver.

Malaria infects 300-400 million people and kills over a million of them each year. It is both preventable and curable, yet people still die, especially people with weak immune systems like children, pregnant women, the elderly and people who are already sick. It is also somewhat of a tragedy that HIV/AIDS receives so much funding and attention, while general health is ignored. Health issues like maternal mortality, diarrhea, malaria and TB affect many more people in Africa than does the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The first four are all easily prevented or cured, but there is little funding available and so millions of people die every year for lack of health facilities, clean water and medication. The US government has donated over $100 million to Tanzania and every penny is earmarked for HIV/AIDS programming. In a way, this is a great crime. Health and disease cannot be isolated from their social, political and economic contexts, yet this is precisely what the US government is seeking to do. It is trendy to fund HIV/AIDS programming, and so it is funded at the detriment of health issues in general.