(Matthew Amon Ssekaana Photo)
A photo that shows “something about life and mystery as much as it shows some very happy children in Africa enjoying hockey.”
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, January 25, 2025)
MUKONO, UGANDA —My phone recently showed me one of those photo montages called Memories.
Exactly five years earlier, on a January day, someone took a photo of me standing with a gaggle of Ugandan kids holding hockey sticks, gear that I’d previously brought overseas. It was just before COVID.
The kids are very happy. I’m the “Mzungu,” that is the rich, white guy, towering tall, humorously out of place, like in the Sesame Street song, “One of these things is not like the others.”
Now I don’t have a close relationship with my phone. I think cocaine addicts have it easier than some of us with our phones. But I’d like to thank my phone for this memory.
It’s a priceless moment, really, these kids having just played ball hockey in their joy-filled Ugandan way. And the one child’s t-shirt saying, “The struggle is real.” Five years on, I easily remember that shirt.
A vibrant university campus with thousands of students is nearby. Further away, through miserable traffic, is Kampala, Uganda’s capital, with offices and shops and restaurants and such. Travel further and discover remarkable topography, Uganda’s game parks and wildlife treks.
In this, Uganda, like any developing nation, is more than you might imagine. Even so, by dumb luck, I’m somehow born into a rich nation. My children are finding their young adult pathways in a rich nation. Then their children will, and so on. Why this good fortune?
Not that all people don’t suffer. We do. Suffering is part of the human condition. Some thinkers – Victor Frankl comes to mind – have insight in how to endure it with some authenticity. Still, travel to certain places and be reminded of my, of your, unmerited privilege. It’s discomforting.
Despite the economic challenges, North American youth, according to the data, are still richer than prior generations at their age. Considering our culture’s angst, it’s something to keep in mind.
Two hundred years ago, in 1825, more than 90 per cent of the world’s 1 billion people lived in what we’d now call extreme poverty, this according to Our World in Data. Adjusting for inflation and differences between countries and times in history, almost everyone lived on less than today’s equivalent of 1.90 “International Dollars” a day.
The Industrial Revolution triggered a dramatic change, so fully that in the rich west we may see our modern life as somehow the norm. But if human history were one hour long, then this remarkable rise in living standards – imagine, flying over the ocean – has just happened in the last few seconds.
People are now being lifted economically faster than ever. In 1970, half of humanity still lived in extreme poverty, that is by the above-noted definition. In 2025, of earth’s 8 billion people, only about 10 per cent live in this state. It’s remarkable news.
Still, it may not mean much to a Ugandan child who knows how real the struggle can still be. His school, if a public school, is a joke. She might not have enough food today. Plenty of Ugandan children are among the more than two billion people worldwide without a toilet.
So I do thank my phone for this rather discomforting memory, this photo that shows something about life and mystery as much as it shows some very happy children in Africa enjoying hockey.
I once heard that listening to your life is like flipping through a stranger’s photo album. You’re flipping pages, looking for someone you might recognize. Maybe, by chance, you do. Maybe, by some fluke, you even see yourself in a photo.
But if you recognize nobody, you can still go home, find the album of your own life, and look at people and memories in your story. You may have half-forgotten some. But then, there they are. You look and remember and, with any luck, you do listen.
This is it. They’re part of your own journey. And it’s sacred.