A Modest Retraction

So it was just pointed out to me that the link I posted to my academic blog was broken. Oops. Here's the real thing. It has all five of us posting to it, not just me, so you can see what the rest of the team is up to.

Oh, and I just posted my mid-project review over there. If you had any questions at all as to what I was doing for school down here, that monster ought to both inform and depress you. Or maybe it will spur you into compassionate action! That would be a lot cooler. If you wind up so moved that you hop the next plane to SA, let me know. I've got all the contacts now to hook you up with a sweet vacation, followed by years of commitment to hellish social justice work.

Oh, and I posted some thoughts on my project and the evangelicals, too. Check it out! I'm kinda fond of that one.

Also, in case you passed over it, I just jazzed up the blog with a new navigation bar. It's just under the title picture. I made it so that newcomers to the blog (what's up, D Dorm!) don't get bogged down by the unwieldy premise of this trip. You can check out the posts where I lay out the whole trip, the people who came here, the internship, and the class project respectively. It also has a link to my academic blog so no one has to dig for it. Last but not least, I dug up the link to Greener in the Bush's RSS Feed! It's the last link in the navbar. Subscribing to that bugger involves clicking the link and bookmarking the page in your browser; that way you'll know when I make another shotgunish round of posts.

I don't have anything else to say. Ciao? Have a good night (morning)?

Cheers!

He's Such an Englishman Sofi's Daughter Called Him "Daddy" and He Blushed

Here at Cosmos Farm my bosses hold a Bible Study every Friday. I'm not always comfortable sitting in — most of the members are very conservative. And I haven't considered my own spirituality since I moved away for college; appreciating what some call Creation is hard enough when you're running on deadline after deadline, gulping coffee like a fish (or burning through half a pack a day, like some of my friends). But I keep joining in around the edges. It's the only time during the week the whole white community gets together here. They're a very diverse group: some are quiet seekers of God, some are friendly missionaries working in local schools, some are loud, fire-and-brimstone evangelists.

But one guy in particular stood out when I met him. Andy is from England, and like me, he's working on a thesis for school here. In his case he's working on his PhD. Also like me, he's been trying out and scrapping subjects for his academic Magnum Opus.

Right before I met him, I settled on a subject for my school project that turned out similar to his. That's right! I finally know for sure what I have to do to graduate this year. Here's a sketchy version of the proposal:

Topic: the Zulu perspective of the AIDS pandemic ravaging their community.

Framing Questions:

- Why, after almost twenty years of AIDS education, have the numbers of infected spiked in this area of KwaZulu-Natal?

- The Zulu community of KwaZulu-Natal has responded to the AIDS epidemic with a remarkably fatalistic attitude. Is the atmosphere a reflection of the Zulus' situation with the disease, or does it also reflect pre-existing values in their culture?

- What obstacles face the AIDS patients of KwaZulu-Natal? Can they be surmounted without outside help?

- Are NGOs really helping AIDS patients get treatment and manage the stigma of their disease?


Living in what's called the AIDS capitol of the world, I'm well-placed for the job.

The research has been going well so far, except that I've done a terrible job documenting it. I have an Academic Blog where I keep readers up to date with the gritty details of my research. I'm working a lot of catch-up right now to finish the couple of entries I missed. (But by the time you read this, they'll be up. I update my academic blog every Sunday, so keep checking back if that interests you.)

Basically, that's all I know about my own subject. I've got a few leads -- people to discuss my project with who might point me toward something interesting.

Andy is the first of those leads. For his doctorate, he's designing a new kind of education program. It's supposed to be more effective at deterring the spread of AIDS. The program is called "Crossroads," and I don't know much about it except that it sprung out of a research paper on the Christian Church's AIDS education. Like a true Greener, as soon as I heard the word "Church" I caught a whiff of a possible train wreck, especially since it's also supposed to "teach Zulus modern values and responsibility." But it should be interesting. And Andy is a quietly married Englishman. He seems too gentle to be wrapped up in weird, sexually frustrated Jesus Camp doctrine.

I'm working on getting to sit in on a Crossroads lesson, and I'll do a full write-up of it once I get myself in there. For three weeks now I've been reading about AIDS and the Zulus, and I've been working with AIDS patients. I've seen enough sick people for a crack team of medical anthropologists.

Crossroads is definitely my next step. Maybe it'll turn out to be exactly what this place needs. I can hope so, anyway.