Wat a way to go

by Brother Bimbo del Doppio Senso, OPI

Thailand: A Buddhist monk has set up an AIDS temple in an attempt to both shock people out of complacency, and to fight indifference towards and discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS.

The first stop on a tour of Wat Phrabaht Nampu temple is a glass-windowed room where 12 formaldehyde-preserved bodies lie exposed on wooden slats. Their dark brown, leathery skin is stretched taut over bones. Snapshots next to each body remind viewers that the remains in front of them were once healthy people, living ordinary lives. They include a sex worker infected by a customer, a woman infected by her husband and a child born with the disease. All were former patients who donated their bodies.

Misunderstandings about the ways HIV is transmiitted has led to families refusing to accept the bones of their relatives, something the temple has dealt with in an interesting manner:

Outside the museum, visitors see a row of sculptures made from the crushed bones of those who have died at the temple. Crafted by an artist whose brother has AIDS, the metre-long sculptures depict various modes of transmission, from a couple having sex to a mother with her child.

The project was a way to deal with the temple's growing collection of bones. Hundreds of boxes with names and identity numbers are still stored in a meditation hall and 7,000 cream-coloured bags are kept outside near a Buddha image. We usually send the bones home to their families, but only 10 percent keep them. They are afraid the bones have AIDS, said Kongkiat

"AIDS" temple aims to shock complacent Thais—L'Express, 1st December 2003.