God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

09/26/2009 • 10:36 pm Comments Off on 26.09.2009 It hits home….

26.09.2009 It hits home….

Saturday evening, and slowly but surely it hits home: This very next morning, it will be the last Sunday service you are conducting as the chaplain of this German speaking community. Since days I can feel, that besides all happy ends and staying in the country and working in the fields of HIV and AIDS it is indeed work to get an emotional grip to that fact. For 12,5 years the Sunday service was always a fixed point to meet the people, to have a chat afterwards, to liaise with those, who attended every Sunday, to welcome the new ones, say farewell to the swallows before winter, joke with the kids and eat some cake or have a coffee.

I will simply miss it. And all supply services of this world will not bring me back that feeling of belonging to this bunch of so diverse people, unified only through their language. Communities abroad are indeed special, they are a melting pot for a whole range on opinions, longings, life designs and desires – it’s a vibe I never found in a German parish. This is said without any judgement.

I guess it will take time to re-adjust and find myself in the new position. And I decided that I take my time to mourn the loss of this community and that I take my time to absorb this farewell so that at the end, a wonderful kaleidoscope of memories will be part of my life. I can sense now how much I loved to be the chaplain, how much it was part of my life. Actually a good feeling, combined with the sadness of leaving…

Filed under: Reflection, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

09/25/2009 • 11:30 pm Comments Off on 25.09.2009 Makwan. A letter from Paradise

25.09.2009 Makwan. A letter from Paradise

On Facebook I am part of the cause: “save the iranian gays Hamzeh and Loghman from being executed”
On the cause side one can see the youtube clip: Makwan, a letter from Paradise – which shows the hanging of a gay person in Iran and brings to live the life of a person who’s only guilt it was to love a man as a man. It is touching, shocking, moving, going to heart.  It is unbelievable that there are still countries where people are executed because of their sexual preference.  And religion is the cause for the death sentence.

I makes me aware of how powerful religion can be, that it can be a cause of life or death, a blessing or a curse for another person with a different ethical view and living condition. And it makes me so much more cautious about how I judge and talk about other people. Also in our Christian believe system is homosexuality intransic evil as I have read in one church paper. Working in the fields of HIV and AIDS, the gay issue is of course very often attached to it, specially when somebody is coming from Europe. Here in South Africa, the virus has no “gay” connotation, many women and heterosexual persons are infected. Nevertheless, when it comes to the history of the virus in the 80′, it was in the gay clubs of North America were the virus was prevalent and spread.

So sexual orientation is on the agenda again and again, when dealing with my portfolio. For me personally, I don’t think, that the sexual preference does not matter and I guess, that for God it also does not play a role – whether somebody has a good heart, develops his or her talents, is doing good, is a blessing for others – that might be rather criteria in his or her eyes. Well, I guess, even “his” or “her” means a limitation to God. But unfortunately our language needs a gender to express itself.  Having in the moment the big discussion about our South African female runner, it shows clearly how careful we should be with gender determination anyway.

Anyway, this film-clip about Makwan, yes, I would say Makwan has touched my heart and my soul this eve, and I will never ever forget what I have seen – and will be always in my mind, as a person, as a Christian, as a priest.

Filed under: Networking, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

09/23/2009 • 9:42 pm Comments Off on 23.09.2009 Doing good..

23.09.2009 Doing good..

Doing good isn’t that easy. How often do we have requests from people from overseas wanting to do something good. This means in many cases they envisage themselves helping HOPE Cape Town in some practical and personal way. This is difficult in many ways. HOPE Cape Town is not a children’s orphanage in the wild of Africa, but a professional organisation working in state institutions like primary health care facilities (also called township clinics) or Tygerberg Children’s Hospital. We simply cannot take everybody as a volunteer and this creates very often disappointment. South Africa too has rules and regulations, and very often, the question of a working visa ends the dream of doing good. But also being in the country guarantees not a volunteer post. The person must be suitable, the work must be meaningful and beneficial to the causes of HOPE Cape Town and its’ patients and clients.

So we try to balance every request and look for its merit. But even if it would fit, an organisation like HOPE Cape Town can only take a certain amount of volunteers at a time. There must be supervision and guidance. We have in the moment two volunteers at any given time from “weltwaerts” which is an initiative from the German Government to give young people a chance to discover their talents while working abroad. Add one or two more and we are already at the end of our capacity.

It is interesting to see that also elderly persons want to contribute and we see more and more requests from those, who are retired and seek for a meaningful purpose for the years after work. And as Cape Town is a prime destiny on the world map, there are months were we have to answer every day several requests. This leaves me for example sometimes a bit unhappy to deny such requests as I am sure the person on the other side of the world just want to do good. And I have to concede that wanting to do good is getting more and more difficult in our days.

So how does HOPE Cape Town choses its volunteers?
After getting an application we are looking whether the person can fund himself/herself completely and whether the skills or requirements are fitting in with the requirements of HOPE Cape Town and its actual work. If it matches and a place is available the person gets the go ahead to come and join HOPE Cape Town for a certain period of time. The volunteer will have a supervisor whom he or she reports to on a regular base.

Besides the volunteers we also have most times medical students doing an elective student programme and we more and more have also PhD students who make use of our connections into the township communities for their research. It goes without say that all is done in accordance with the regulations of the ethical committee of the University of Stellenbosch if so required.

Filed under: General, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Medical and Research, Networking, , , , , , , , , ,

09/19/2009 • 5:17 pm Comments Off on 19.09.2009 a whitey…

19.09.2009 a whitey…

a Cape Town, Saturday, 19.9.2009 @ round about 10 am in the morning. With a friend of mine I visit the FNB Bank in the pedestrian zone and we have to wait quite a while until somebody attends to us. Everybody needs some time to resolve his or her problem. Looking around in this big room, I suddenly realise that I am the only white person in the crowd of customers. I realize it and I find it amazing. When I arrived in Cape Town in 1997 the city was known for her “white colour”.  Coloureds where common, but not so many black South Africans. The first time I experienced me being a minority was in Johannesburg a couple of years ago, when I went to Hilbrow and the muti market.
This country is really transforming, but race remains an issue. Most applications, most forms have a space where you must identify yourself either as black, coloured, white or asian/indian. Knowing the race means knowing a bit of the history of the family the person is coming from. It is knowing a bit of the trouble, this person, if old enough, had to go through in life.

In Germany, where I was born, race was never really an issue when I was young. As Bitburg, where I grew up, had a big US base, the colour black was rather associated with “having money”.  So here in South Africa I had to learn to appreciate this race issue – and I struggled with it. Because for me, so i always argued, race does not matter…
Well, I had to learn here, that it does matter, one or the other way, in the past of South Africa, in its present times and it looks like this will still go on quite a while. I must admit, I am getting used to it – and do not understand anymore, when visiting Europeans start arguing about it..  I guess, I am becoming more and more a real South African; or should I say: a real Capetonian?? 🙂

Filed under: Reflection, Society and living environment, , , , , , , , ,

09/17/2009 • 9:15 pm Comments Off on 17.09.2009 School anniversary in Brooklyn

17.09.2009 School anniversary in Brooklyn

Yesterday evening I was invited to join a performance of students of the Holy Cross Primary School in Brooklyn near Cape Town – and as every year, it was marvellous to see how the first till seven grader performed and transformed a school hall into a studio, a landing on the moon, a school class 50 years ago and much more, all done with lots of music, singing and dancing. Seeing in the clear eyes of most of these youngsters one wonders while watching the performance how they will do in life. What will they achieve after leaving school? What future is for them in this wonderful paradise called South Africa, where the beauty and the beast are always in reach. Where world icons like Nelson Mandela live side by side by with people killing each other on a daily base for a cigarette, some Nike shoes or a handful of Rand.  Where the triumph of mind over 27 years of imprisonment meets the downfall of millions who cannot make a living for themselves still in our days and rely more or less on a handout of the government, too little to live, too much to die…

What kind of dreams, of hopes I had when I was in that age? I cannot remember exactly but I surely had not the worries and sorrows of everyday struggle these kids endure sometimes on a daily base. This from Holy Cross Sisters lead school is like an island of hope: a beacon of assurance that there is a way forward in this new South Africa. We can not honour enough those teachers and educators, be it in this particular school or all over the country who try their very best to give those kids a chance in life in giving them a base of knowledge. And yes, knowledge is part of development, is part of being able to be self-determined as an adult and to be able to contribute towards society and the community they live in.

But Brooklyn Holy Cross Primary School is for me also travel back in time, the school is a sort of deja-vu of my own school time – the way of teaching, of discipline … it all reminds me on my good old school days somehow ages ago.
In May I attended the 30th anniversary of my own “Abitur” and I it was amazing to see all those faces again I left in 1979 when starting to study theology and philosophy. How most of them had changed but still: again the deja-vu of behaviour patterns – not everything changed really.

I went home after the performance with joy in my heart having seen another generation hopefully being able to do better as we have done, being more wise in using our resources, caring more about nature and the ecology, avoiding meaningless wars and battles and.. and .. and.. And in my heart I also know that it will be most probably not the case. Is the world really going only in circles? Is every generation hoping that the next does not make the same mistakes? Like every parent is hoping to provide a better future for their own kids?

I am not sure, but nobody can take away the joy this eve seeing those kids having a fun of a lifetime while performing, parents to be proud of their kids, nobody can take away two hours of just being content with the world, the people around me and myself. That is more than I hoped for. Thanks to all students and teachers of this school.

Filed under: Reflection, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

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