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
God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE 