Tomorrow is probably the most important day of the year for some people. It’s World AIDS Day. There are more than 36 million people diagnosed with HIV worldwide who are invisible for the rest of the year. We don’t see them and we don’t even think about them, but why? What would you do if you met a nice person and after a while he or she tells you that there’s this thing called AIDS in his or her life? Would you leave them alone in this big and sometimes cruel world, or would you decide to stand above it and be a friend?
To understand what the World AIDS Day is about, we need to have a look into the past. Since 1988 the World AIDS Day has tried to inform society and create solidarity with slogans like “Kissing and hugging don’t spread HIV. Ignorance does.” as a reaction to the stigma people with HIV and AIDS suffer from. In addition, it tries to make people aware that the virus isn’t beaten yet. On this day, people all over the world fundraise in the form of dinner parties, bake sales, quiz nights or charity runs like they do at the Positive East’s Red Run on Sunday 27 November in London.
As a sign of your solidarity and to show your support, you can wear The Red Ribbon tomorrow, a red loop that indicates your awareness. Just put it on your bag or wherever you like. It’s very important to raise awareness in order to sensitize people and avoid the further spread of HIV and AIDS. But carrying the HI virus doesn’t mean you’re affected by AIDS. For example, 85% of people diagnosed with HIV in the UK are not infectious.
Back to the beginning, would you be a friend now?
“Don’t give AIDS a chance”!
Author & Pictures: Isabel Roth
The spirit of Thanksgiving has endured throughout the years and has made it one of the most important holidays in the USA.
Slowly but surely the house fills; family first, to help with cleaning up and laying the table and then the friends arrive around five o’clock. Everybody mingles. The whole house smells amazing. We’re all starving since we haven’t eaten much during the day in order to have enough space in our stomachs for the feast. Finally we gather around the beautifully laid-out dinner table and say grace.
Having eaten far too much, we start emptying the table, put the leftovers in containers to go, and pick off the last pieces of the turkey meat for turkey sandwiches the next day. Before we get ready for the sweet finale, we retell the story of the first Thanksgiving or we take a moment and write down what we are thankful for. Then it is time to enjoy the pies.
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ave never been to a sushi place or Japanese restaurant at least once in their lifetime. The colorful rice rolls have become more and more popular over the past years, as the vast offer of different restaurants in Augsburg alone suggests! Japanese food such as sushi, just to name one of the many different and delicious dishes Japanese cuisine has to offer, also represents a part of Japanese culture. If you not only want to show respect this, but also the effort the itamae (the sushi chef) is putting into your dish, it’s important to eat it the way it’s supposed to be eaten – otherwise you might come across as a rude gaijin (jap. 外人, lit. translates to “person from outside”, “outsider”). The word has a very strong negative connotation and has been used to describe non-Japanese people, especially western people. Today, though, it’s being replaced by the more formal gaikokujin (jap. 外国人, “person from a foreign country”).
cool, but, well… famous. My favourite place was a small cafe a bit further down the road. You still had the whole setting, but you could actually talk without having to shout at each other or having to cope with getting elbowed in the back. Keep your eyes open and you’ll find a bunch of places that are not on tourists’ radar.