12/12/2009 • 3:07 am Comments Off on 12.12.2009 Visit of HH Begum Aga Khan
For HOPE Cape Town, such visits are very important – bringing two worlds together and in doing so, being a bridge of understanding – a sparkle of hope indeed.
Filed under: HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Society and living environment, Begum Aga Khan, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, patients
12/11/2009 • 12:43 am Comments Off on 11.12.2009 Rotary AGM
Rotary AGM – how do you turn around an over-aged Rotary Club and how do you get new and young members on board. This was one of the key questions during the AGM today and as with all organisations, also Rotary faces a meltdown on members and the age average is climbing in regions not wanted if you want to think of a good future for clubs. We also are searching again for a new president for the coming Rotary year. If I would not so much away, I maybe would have offered my services, but I find it unfair when one is so often gone during the year and cannot make it to the club meeting.
Rotary Club of Signal Hill is my first Rotary Club and somehow it feels home to me. I have been a member since I am in South Africa – and the club offered me at that time the first into South African society. I am grateful for this experience and I am sure we will turn the tide of age and become a more lively club again in the near future. It is one of my resolutions to assist in this next year a bit more than I have done this year.
The Rotary Club of Signal Hill also brought me to Tygerberg via the telemedicine project – so without this club, there would most probably be no HOPE Cape Town. Another reason to stay on and be faithful to the club. I admit: it is not always easy to turn up every Thursday even when one is in town . the way to the Royal Yacht Club is sometimes a lengthy one. But when I see what Rotarians are doing all good around the world, then this organisation is a great one to be associated with.
Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, AGM, Rotary Signal Hill, society, south africa
12/06/2009 • 6:42 pm Comments Off on 06.12.2009 Tiger Woods or skeletons are always to find…
I am amazed to read again and again stories about Tiger Wood, the golfer who is falling in the moment apart – at least when you believe the newspapers and all those, who have known always.. I personally find his story in the moment rather tragic – because I believe that everybody is a human being and only a human one – everybody has skeletons in his hidden cellar – some are lucky, other are less fortune and it is revealed still at lifetimes. It seems that the longing of people for “the hero”, the model who is superhuman – with no mistakes and no errors of judgement. Looking into politics, sports but also the church, how can one judge this often so overwhelming outcry, if a person of the public is caught red-handed in an affair or similar.
I have the impression that specially those, who are lucky for not being discovered yet are those who point fingers the most and the most vehement. And I also have the impression that one mistake or even a line of mistakes makes a whole life achievement invalid. Suddenly, the whole person is bad or not worthy to be on a pedestal Well, we, the audience, the spectators are puting people on the pedestal and we make people think that they deserve being up above us. It reminds me the “Hosianna” and “Crucify him” – the same screamers only days apart. We have not learned since 2000 years.
I believe that all life is trial and error, is achievement and failure – and that the last judgement is for God, nobody else. Life is always a struggle and nobody wins all battles in life. Or, as we Christians say: We are all saints and sinners at the same time.
I was attending the ordination to the diaconate today of Dominic – and obviously this is a moment where one reflects on all the promises done in this very moment of ordination, of all the goodwill , every ordained person has at the begin of his ministry. But life is long and many challenges are lying ahead. And also here I strongly believe one should never forget that also clergy is made of humans. How often is such a “holy man” put on a pedestal in a community – whether he wants or not. I admit, some even like it – get used to it.. but every community or parish has also the duty to keep their priest on the carpet… And some helping hands after failure.
Reading about Tiger Woods the golfer and attending the ordination – I am more than ever convinced that more mercy – but also more privacy is deserved by each and everybody.
Filed under: Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, Church Matters, mercy, ordination, Tiger Woods
12/05/2009 • 7:06 pm Comments Off on 05.12.2009 visitor…
Friday’s FIFA draw brought a lot of visitors to Cape Town. Before the draw I had the pleasure to meet with The Begum Aga Khan, who also happens to be the patron of the Berlin AIDS Gala. As HOPE Cape Town benefits from the Berlin AIDS Gala, the Princess wanted to see the project and we spend more than 2 hours at Tygerberg Children’s Hospital where she was introduced to the project and its work. She came in touch with our little patients and their parents and could get first hand experience about the consequences of the pandemic. The kids were also excited to get also an early Christmas…
Such visits are very important, do I feel every time with such a visitor, that I fulfill my purpose: being a bridge between different worlds and trying to help to understand each other. And it is ont only a one-way road. For many patients it is also a very first opportunity to come in close contact with Europeans, their thinking and their habits. Such a visit, well prepared, serves all parties. But I must add that we from HOPE Cape Town never put up a “programme” – no singing, dancing, saying a poem. We are not producing a show and when I hear of or have to attend such a ‘show’ it leaves always a bitter taste. Life as it is, that is what visitors, dignities, officials or Mr. Mustermann should touch and feel and smell and taste. Nothing more. Life is so exciting, one does not need show in such an environment. For this, Artscape or any other theater is a the right place.
Well, the visit went very well and we will meet again in Berlin @ the Berlin AIDS Gala 2010. I am looking forward to it and I know, that a further piece of South African reality will be present there next year. So, not only for some soccer teams, but also for HOPE Cape Town was the 4.12. a good day.
Filed under: HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Aga Khan, Berlin AIDS Gala, FIFA, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust
12/01/2009 • 10:05 pm Comments Off on 01.12.2009 World AIDS Day..
It doesn’t matter where I look, it is obvious: it is World AIDS Day and it seems everybody is on this day aware of the pandemic and it’s consequences. Even our president Jacob Zuma – he will go for a test, he vows to treat all children tested positive from April next year, statistics are run up and down in all newspapers – every bit of good news are squized again and again – the challenges mentioned – and somehow I think it is every year the same for one day.. and then it ceases again – and the lives of the millions of people infected and affected is shelved again until next year same time. One could be cynical about it, if there wouldn’t be hope – or HOPE.. 🙂
Here in Cape Town, the FIFA draw on Friday overshadows anyhow the World AIDS Day – streets are closed, traffic jams, police helicopters all day long, a city preparing for another special day where the world will be watching what is happening at the convention centre of the mother city. All over the city workers trying to finish off for the big draw – and then, for the next half a year, soccer will rule South Africa and everything else has to wait until August 2010.
I am just coming back from a reception marking 100 years of South African – Japanese relationship – and one can see the typical Cape Town syndrome beginning of December: Everybody somehow tired from the rush of November – the hectic of all-has-to-be-done until the summer holidays arrive in a couple of days. My little success today was just to get the internet up and running again – the second time in two weeks that the line collapses and the reason is clear now: Telkom sells an ADSL speed which are too fast for the old lines… 🙂 also a way to make business.. Now the speed is down again and the line stable and up again….
Also with HOPE Cape Town we are short before the holiday season starts for most of our employees. We still got some visitors on our list until mid December, so enough to prepare and time is flying. I must admit that I am also happy if it all slows down a bit for the festive season. This year was an amazing one and I have seen the best and the worst from church colleagues, I have been trapped in empty promises and saw myself almost at the end of my church career, my life has been turned up side down so many times at will of other people, and now, at the end it looks like the uneven lines of life are leading to a years end with the promise of meaningful work for the years to come. It almost sounds like a years end blog, but all the traffic and times of stop and go are ideal times for reflection of past and present times. The rest of my thoughts then at the year’s end blog.. but it might well be only in the new year… Then New Years Eve this year, I will celebrate in Thailand – and I am sure I will be out of the streets to celebrate with the crowd on the streets of Bangkok. It is one of the last festive times, I never had the time to celebrate in the East, so I am looking forward to it. But before still some hard work – and some sleep. 🙂
Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, adsl, cape town, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, pandemic, soccer world cup, telekom, World AIDS Day, zuma
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