The 29.10.2009 is a special day for me – it is the day, where HOPE Cape Town was launched officially in 2001. It was a day I remember clearly: the drive to Tygerberg with a guest in my car who just had been given a positive test result. Clem Sunter giving a talk for the 150 man/women strong audience, a priest, a rabbi and an imam giving the blessings, the invited sangomas who were not that welcomed in the “academic environment” at that time, the buffet done by the Rotary ladies afterwards.
A day not to be forgotten – it changed my life forever and 8 years later, I can say that nothing is as it has been before that time. HIV and AIDS, these topics seems today to be my destiny – my life portfolio and I get more and more the sense, that I am – after 8 years – not be at the end of my way but only at the beginning. And this is sometimes scary to sense, to feel and to know. It is a topic, a red line in my life now, that I have never called for, but that without asking entered my life and took over in so many ways. AIDS activist, condom priest, rebel in the church – how many titles did I earn in the last years – and how many in my own church feel uncomfortable to get associated with me? On the other hand: How much love, how much support did I get from all ways of life in the last years. How many emails, letters did I receive as an answer on my book, the talks and workshops, the sermons and whatever way I was asked to give input in this field of the pandemic.
curse and blessing – and all the grey areas in between – but one is for sure: This topic has opened to me a world I don’t want to miss anymore – this topic has given me the chance to meet people in a way, which one can call indeed real encounters of hearts and minds and souls. I don’t want to miss one of them.
Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Reflection, activist, Aids, aids activist, book, condom, condom priest, hiv, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, rebel
