The Chaos Within - Dance with the tiger

The DISHA Clients dancing on the roof top

11th January 2007.

Pune, Maharashtra , India

Still here. And if the first eleven days of 2007 are anything to go by, we will probably be here tomorrow, and the many tomorrows that follow.

• Project proposals need to be written.
• Annual project and team evaluation.
• Meetings with community leaders to help them understand why we need a shelter home for PLHIV (the new politically correct acronym).
• The DISHA Mobile Awareness Vehicle (D-MAV) needs to be painted and outfitted. Remember the A-Team van?
  
• A Pune city youth coalition is in the pipeline.
• The Church of Scotland HIV/AIDS Project coordinator visits us in Feb.
• Youth centres will start in the Tadiwala road community in April.
• Abstracts for ICAAP 2007 Colombo and IAS 2007 Sydney - scholarships to be applied for...
• The Ramtekadi and Bibwewadi nutrition centres are about to begin...

And more, much more...

Don't forget holding the hand of those who are about to die, as they struggle for breath and look at you with confusion, even betrayal... who betrayed him... her? I don't know... and yet, what the Wake Up Pune campaign has spewed up is that there is a sense of collective betrayal when a man or woman lies in the corner of a room dying of something he doesn't need to die of, if only...

Harsh. Can we blame ourselves collectively for the death of some random who got infected with HIV and now lies dying and forgotten. So what if HIV is a chronic condition that people can now live with and no longer need to die of... Collective responsibility - Impractical, juvenile, does no fucking good. Idiot. Me.

The senselessness can be overpowering though. The 'what ifs' numb us... and then we exhale, smile, shake our collective head, and continue on this journey that will in the end consume us.

Tiger by the tail... more visceral really, the tiger looks back at us in the mirror, the tiger is in the tired smiling eyes of beneficiaries, beautiful and majestic, powerful, we can never leave, escape. If we do, life will disembowel us.

So... what do we do?

Dance with the tiger.