Tuesday, August 29, 2006

disbelief

Yesterday I was volunteering at the Saint Vincent De Paul soup kitchen that happens in the church courtyard every Monday night. I was surprised and shocked to hear what one of the students cleaning dishes with me was saying. In effect, he was telling me that HIV/AIDS was caused by stress. This stress is caused when you get tested and someone says you are positive and you stop eating. Now there is a bit of common sense to his argument. Stress can probably make you more susceptible to the illnesses that characterize AIDS, but to hear that a pandemic plague that has caused millions of deaths was just stress was incredulous! So why is it then that the biomedical picture isn’t been believed or understood here? What is needed? More education? Perhaps I am looking at this situation wrong though. There is some sort of gap between the bio-medical solution and the people here being affected by the illness. I recently read an article that stated that we must take the African traditional worldview seriously when trying to address the issue. I don’t know how one can do that without furthering other negative attitudes (an increase in taboos for example).

Anyways, I found this message below on the AIDS page for the archdiocese.


For I was
hungry
and you
gave me
food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you made me welcome,
lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and
you visited
me, in prison
and you came
to see me.
In so far
as you did
this to
one of the
least of
my family
you did it
for me.

Matthew 25:35-40


PS: in other great news, the LRA has signed a truce with Uganda. There has been a civil war going on in the north of Uganda for the past 20 years. Joseph Kolbe who was in charge of the rebels is wanted by the ICC for rape, murder and forcing children to fight in his rebel army. Find out more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5293630.stm
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1 comment:

Eric Swinn said...

Hey Mike. I was going to comment on this by saying that it's really a reflection of thousands of years of believing that any disease is caused by simple things. (korean doctors in 2007 still diagnosing their patients with 'fan death' and 'fan illness,' for example, which is a severe sickness caused by sleeping with the fan on). These types of notions are almost impossible to argue about. Most of the Korean-Americans on this program got really offended when our American-educated doctor told them fan-death is a myth and so is the idea that pricking your finger with a needle will reduce headaches, etc. as is proven by the blood being darker...and these are Americans.

Then you addressed it with your comment about just furthering more negative attitudes when you take such world views into consideration and say 'an increase in taboos, for example.' This is a very interesting viewpoint and I'd like to hear what you have to say about it so I can better understand. Write it in your next blog, if you have time?

Alright, glad you are ok. Take care of yourself. :)

-Eric

1:43 AM

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