He passed away and I didn't get to go to his final farewell. I kind of went off the meal after that. It's hard to get figures on the number of actual Aids casualties here, the reason being that the two causes cited for every death are Aids and witchcraft. In addition, many Aids cases are said to be due to witchcraft, which make things even more complicated to assess. Whatever the cause, in this town you could easily find a different wake to go to for every day of the year.
People seem to be dying like flies and a large proportion are relatively young people.
A couple of years ago, I had first-hand experience of just how desperate the situation of infected people here is. The niece of the family I was renting a house from had got sick. She was a pretty woman, dark, petite, in her late twenties. In fact, since she was real thin and had always been so, the weight loss was the last thing her family noticed. Half of her face was paralysed, her left arm also.