God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

11/21/2012 • 8:43 pm Comments Off on A melody my heart cannot resist..

A melody my heart cannot resist..

It was after a four-week trip to Europe: I was sitting and eating my decent dinner at a restaurant. Next to it a construction side where on that Saturday afternoon work was in full progress and it was loud and noisy. And suddenly it happened:

English: Coat of Arms of South Africa Deutsch:...

the realization that I was indeed back at the right place: Cape Town and South Africa. It seems that this moment condensed somehow all my feelings for this country. While others check their passports and planing for their kids a career outside South Africa, while crime and madness are running high before the big ANC conference, while strikes turning more and more violent – even while I consider the glass only half full in the moment for South Africa myself I knew it deep in my heart: Here is my place to be for the rest of my life. Amazing the certainty of feeling – the feeling of belonging – the sensation that I have found my destiny.

Maybe I knew it all along after almost 16 years, but now I can point a finger to a moment in time where it became an almost emotional certainty.
I am aware I will almost speak, write and think with an accent in my English and I will always stand there being astonished about the turns of life as it only can happen in Africa. I am aware I can never catch up with the enthusiasm of cricket, rugby and all the sports, I can never be a real  South African – but in my heart, South Africa has formed a melody I cannot resist.

I have always felt that my life has a meaning and I am sure that this cornerstone of realization also means something in my life and will transform my life further. Whatever happens, I will always be grateful for this moment in time..

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11/12/2012 • 5:01 pm Comments Off on Culture and language

Culture and language

Township Blue

Township Blue (Photo credit: Joseph A Ferris III)

Traveling through some European countries again I sometimes reflect on the distances between people’s understanding and imagination. Townships and life conditions of most South Africans are known to many in Germany only via TV, a view protected by glass and the possibility to switch it off when it comes to close. How does one bring the real colors, the smell, the atmosphere from one continent to the other?

Also the question of realities and how I name them is different and having the same vocabulary does not mean to understand each other. This is true when talking about people from different life environments, but even within my own circles I often experience that words can have so many different meanings and create so many different associations. What very often irritates me is that words are connected with judgement, with “good or bad” feelings, with “white or black” . The older I get the more I get irritated when descriptions are perceived as judgements and how often people take things much more personal than they are meant to be.

I guess, this all is important to reflect when traveling the world to bring people together and let them join hands, who are far away and maybe even never meet, but hear about each other. But this also important to reflect when working in international teams where people from different cultures and languages are working together. Also HOPE Cape Town has this kind of challenges, bringing together different South African cultures and adding the European spice. Quite a mixture, but I believe in diversity and I am sure that this challenge is also an asset because it forces us again and again to listen to each other and to learn from each other. A lifelong and never-ending learning curve – and at the same time a motor for development into the future.

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

10/16/2012 • 8:15 am 1

Preparing for Europe

south africa

south africa (Photo credit: rafiq s)

 

 

As always this time of the year I am preparing to leave Cape Town and fly to Germany for an extended period of time. For four weeks I will travel to and between Munich, Frankfurt, Dresden, Berlin, Trier, but also Vienna and London and other cities. It is a very hectic schedule, but I try to bundle as much as possible into my agenda to make the long flight worthwhile and to use the time as efficient as possible. The HOPE Gala in Dresden will be the highlight of the trip, followed by the Festive AIDS Gala in Berlin. But besides all glamor the trip is about HOPE Cape Town and about people. It is also about being an ambassador for the situation in South Africa. We are going through a tough time here in country – mine strikes, burning trucks, strikers killing people who want to work; all the news about violence and intimidation is surely not good news and paints a rather grim picture of South African society. In fights within the ANC, the ruling party, but also corruption, wildcat strikes, violence, high unemployment and the lack of political leadership brings the country to the brink of chaos and unlawfulness. It feels a bit like the wild west when watching the news. But as always there are also rays of hope and a great potential. All this makes it even more important that the relationship between South Africa and European countries is strong and based on honest and correct information, which in return fosters the means to support the new South Africa in a beneficial way. I hope that my travel contributes not only to the well-being to HOPE Cape Town Association& Trust but also gives a bit towards a better future for this beloved country.

 

 

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, HOPE Cape Town Trust, Networking, Politics and Society, Reflection, , , , , , , , , ,

10/09/2012 • 5:52 pm Comments Off on Death is always an unwelcome guest

Death is always an unwelcome guest

In the early years of the HIV pandemic death was a constant companion of those infected and affected. And the real scandal was that young people were dying, those life still in front of them. In our days death has been put on the backseat and an average person being on anti-retroviral treatment has a good chance to live a life  as long as anybody else. But I guess this does not exempt us from thinking about our relationship with brother death and how we once want to be found by him. Life the life to the fullest every day, I was once again reminded to this old saying and advice receiving note of a friend’s wife being killed in a car accident. Still the smiling, gracious and loving person in the afternoon and all gone within hours after a horrible accident. Shocking and one tries to find words to comfort the man having lost his love of his life – almost impossible. Death has shortcut a relationship which was due to last decades longer and no words, nothing can really prepare for such a moment.
Several hours after receiving the shocking news I had to phone a previous chair-lady of my Parish council when I was still working in Germany. She was death sick, refused further treatment and here I spoke with someone who indicated that she knows every bit of being a dying person, not knowing how much suffering more will come before the kiss of death will relieve her from pain and all the worries coming with it. A family stretched to the limits to accommodate the last days of the mom, mother in law, grandmother and whatever role she took else on in her life. Once again, death seemed to come inconvenient, even when he knocked on the door in advance to make his presence felt.

So how do we want to die – announced or as a surprise to all? Silent in bed or a dramatic farewell in life? How do we prepare for this moment? Maybe in helping each other to live life to the fullest much more than we do in the moment. Living in the presence, not already thinking of the future and what we might be able to do, to say… Maybe in having less regrets and more happiness, fewer fights and more joy? Maybe in reconciling in the eve to make sure there will be no bitter feeling if one is on the way out that very night?

And maybe in understanding that we live on borrowed time, that we don’t own our life or that of our family, our children, our friends, but are invited to take part for a while before they or we move on to higher service. Whatever comes when we close our eyes may come as a surprise to many of us – I am curious to know, but I hope I still have lots of time before knowing it for sure. Life is so precious, let’s take time to live life and not to be lived by a life we think others expect from us.

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, Reflection, Religion and Ethics, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

09/30/2012 • 12:08 pm Comments Off on Change of blog title

Change of blog title

The reader will note that I have changed the blog title slightly. Naturally one has some thoughts about it, but I feel that all the words, this blog title includes make out big parts of my life.

GOD – having chosen the priesthood I guess everybody can assume that there is a connection and that I indeed believe that there is more to this world than we can see or hear or feel. Whether we get it always right in the church how we see, proclaim this last point of reference of our whole universe is another question. I am sure we can do much better and I am willing to try very hard to contribute to this.

AIDS – well, out of the blue this pandemic jumped into my life while visiting Tygerberg Children’s Hospital in 1998 and since then my name is associated with Aids activism here in Cape Town, but also within parts of the church.

AFRICA – a continent I heard about conscientiously when we were told not to buy goods from South Africa. “Don’t buy fruits from South Africa” was the slogan I also chanted as a youngster. Apartheid was a funny concept to me; growing up in a town where black people where rich people. Why? Because I lived close to one of the biggest US American Airbases in Germany and the “dollar” was still worth its money. During school and study I never could have imagined to live on this continent, let alone at the very bottom far away from home. Times have changed and Africa is in my heart and in my blood.

HOPE – well, not only HOPE Cape Town is part of my fabric of life, the meaning of the word was always important for me. I could not live without this feeling and longing for the better. I refuse to give up hope – and for me it is more than a feeling. I know that you have to reach out to the stars to get the utmost out of your life. Hope means always thinking outside the box with the certainty that there is always that “little more” to achieve and to get done.

Our lives have become so divers and blogging is a way of communicating this diversity and to connect and reach out without the limitation of national borders. Social media are indeed a force to recon with, but I am aware that we have still to learn as people how to make the best use of it. It’s like with all new inventions and developments; one has to learn to master them in a way beneficial to all.

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