I was given

Thursday 9 September: I was given 3 condoms today and a pen from LOVECONDOMS.ORG. I mention this because it is difficult to escape from the high profile given to fighting HIV/AIDS here. In part this is because it is one of PPHP’s roles and therefore the office is full of this sort of material. But it goes wider than that because you see posters and advertisements about HIV/AIDS everywhere here. I rather fancied the neck chain with "I’ve been tested’" on it – and was about to add smugly that, of course, I have not. But that is one of the points of this work – to get rid of the image that it is only nasty people who get HIV/AIDS.

We had a visit this afternoon from a group from Kenya who do similar work in Nairobi. It was one of the usual sort of thing: we tell them what we do, they tell us what they do, and we compare notes and look to share lessons etc. It was just like so many other similar meetings that I have been to in the UK – except for one thing – the body language was quite different. I am not going to analyse it because body language is, of its nature, personal and maybe one of the best ways to identify nationalities. Making jokes about it is likely to be offensive to someone. But take that aspect of behaviour out of the meeting and it could have been two groups from anywhere in the world – or at least, Europe.

A bit serious today – sorry. Oh, and my brief has expanded enormously today – I have been e-mailing Cardiff looking for material to crib from as I could not possibly write all they want in a couple of months, let alone a couple of weeks. Nice to feel you have something to offer though.