God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Staying on holiday so far away from home has two disadvantages: The first is that people forget that there is indeed a time difference and that phoning me in the evening means waking me up after midnight. Well, one might say, that one could simply switch off the cell during night – and yes, that’s right. But – and this is the second disadvantage: climax points of disasters and worries happening normally especially, when one is far away – so one is needed the most, when one is far away… Or is that only my fantasy?? 🙂

Nevertheless, Bangkok is starting to fill up again with people and cars and noise; normal life has come back to the city of angels. And checking the news I see our president dancing the Zulu wedding dance in full leopard outfit – his third wife, not to count the divorced one and the deceased one – and it is mentioned that he is already engaged with future wife number four. And it comes to my mind what that all means to fidelity in marriage – and the concept of marriage as we Catholics have. Not to mention that his now third wife has already three kids – so sexuality must have been practiced before marriage. Which is obvious for most Africans, as after paying the lobola the couple is allowed to engage in sexual activities before the wedding ceremony – old African traditions – once again – what does this mean to the more Eurocentric view of Catholicism which puts sex only into the marriage.

Here in Bangkok I am reading in the moment a book about katoeys – the third gender in Thailand – and once again I asked myself, what does the existence of such a third gender mean in the framework of Catholic moral theology.

So not, only sleepless nights, but also so many questions and so little answer…  And all this has indeed also to do with the topic of HIV and AIDS and how we approach it.. Well, I still have more than a week time to find some…  🙂

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, Politics and Society, Reflection, Africa, Aids, bangkok, Catholic, Church Matters, ethics, hiv, holiday, katoey, lobola, marriage, moral, moral theology, polygamie, sex, sex before marriage, sexuality, thailand, theology, third gender, zulu, zuma