Mabati!

That is one of my favourite Kiswahili words. I just like the sound of it. What does it mean in English? Corrugated iron sheeting.

Mabati is the most common roofing used here. Ours arrived on Saturday from Dar-es-Salaam. I'd expected -- and thought we'd agreed on -- maroon, but the color is more brown than maroon. It will look good, nonetheless. As soon as it starts going up, I'll take some snaps and post.

I missed a trip to Rome by this much (shows index finger millimetres away from thumb). Our contractor thought it would be good for one of us to join a representative from the Tanzanian Episcopal Conference on a trip to determine whether a proposed deal on tiles is as good as it seems. Alas, the originally proposed dates conflicted with an important meeting -- and the ultimate date chosen is this week, which I can't manage. Only slightly disappointed.