HIV/AIDS Info

I've just posted about three weeks of missives from Gracey. I'm sure you will enjoy reading them as much as I have. You'll note that a recurring theme in these posts is HIV/AIDS. She also mentions the theme of myths that compound the problem.

I have posted a spreadsheet I prepared for a project I did on the Church and HIV/AIDs in Africa. You can view it here. The data is a bit old but astonishing. It is very difficult for us North Americans to comprehend a world in which more than a third of the young adult population is wiped out and in which the average life expectancy is in the late 30s. But that has been the reality for more than ten years for some of the sub-Saharan countries.

Some of my African friends who are Anglican priests in Zambia, South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania report that the lethal combination of war and HIV/AIDS is radically changing cultural norms. The number of marriageable males is so low in some areas and the death rate for both sexes is so high that females are organizing society the way it was done among the natives of North America centered in the great Mississippian culture a thousand years ago: they are shifting to a matriarchal culture (in those areas most affected) in which women exercise authority over most aspect of life (other than war-making) and every woman is an aunt to every child.

These colleagues report that Saturday is "funeral day." One friend reports that he regularly conducts five funerals a day.

Such is the effect of HIV/AIDS, and why we can expect to hear much more about it as Gracey's ministry there continues.