Recent Columns

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, March 15, 2014) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦Fear is a strange thing, which is why it’s so hard to look into the eyes of another human being that you’re about to gas or bomb or, in the case of Uganda’s gays, throw to the lions. This is also why President Yoweri Museveni recently refused to meet with Uganda’s gay community – there were repeated requests – before signing Uganda’s infamous anti-gay law. The new law means even touching with the intent of a homosexual act – try to prove or disprove this one – will get you seven years. Short of jail, a life-sentence for a single homosexual act, there’s obviously also a new chill on the street here.

Once there was a dad who, every morning on the way to school, would pray for safety on the road. He was in a foreign country and the driving was the most dangerous part. Sometimes he’d even pray at other times of the day, ‘God, just keep me alive in this place for the sake […]

(Christian Week - March 12, 2014) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ By now you’ve heard plenty about Uganda’s new toughened laws on homosexuality, the news that spread to the West with the fanfare of a dark sporting event. Even short of jail—terms range from seven years to life—it’s a new day of survival in a horrible state-sanctioned chill. Several weeks in, like so many things in developing nations, it’s hard to know all that’s happening. Was that murder really a robbery gone bad? And that street beating? Why did she really lose her job? Many things simply don’t make the news here in Uganda.

I’ve always liked older women. When I was in Grade 2, Queen Elizabeth was … well … quite something, up there on the classroom wall at Maple Crest School, looking down at me with that hot outfit and crown and all. Those were fine days. The only woman who could compete with the young queen was […]

(The New Vision - Saturday, March 8, 2014) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It’s International Women’s Day and we’re all happy to celebrate women in Uganda and around the world, but the truth of the matter is that it’s the men who need to come to terms with who they are and why they’re around, or it’s all for nothing. This is the strangeness of this big yearly celebration. Women’s Day largely revolves around the hard times women face because their men are so hopeless. Plenty of husbands and fathers don’t pull their weight and don’t understand or care how desperately their families need them. Now I am not about to beat-up myself or my brothers everywhere because I have nothing better to do. The Daughters of Eve are just as fallen as the Sons of Adam. But have an honest look into the homes of Uganda. I’m imagining you see what I see. It’s a bloody mess.

Hannah’s adoption continues to make the news, this time in Uganda’s national  daily, the New Vision. Faithful Reader knows all about the good news of the recent adoption approval we received from the Ugandan court. This, after we fostered Hannah for three years, and then after a further wait of more than 500 days. That’s […]

One day long before anything known as social media was dreamed about, I was the newcomer, new to a certain Ontario town – it was my first newspaper job – and new to a certain life. I needed a bit of friendship, if not guidance and direction. It was a Sunday morning when I walked […]

The talk was this afternoon when I was getting my hair cut. It was on the same topic as it was at this morning’s coffee at my kids’ school. And the same as last night while with a friend outside our Ugandan house. It was about Uganda’s new anti-gay law. Last night, near the house, my 10-year-old daughter came up to […]

(The UCU Standard - Thursday, February 27, 2014) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ Last time in this space we were talking about marriage, how good things come to those who wait, and about falling in love with our Creator, really, the One who knows us better than we know ourselves. I shared that I was 35 before I met my wife and how there was something to this, something mysterious and with joy, the sort that you can’t contrive because it comes from a deeper place inside but also somehow outside of you too.

The thing about winning Gold in an Olympic event over and over and over and (YAWN) over is that you might start to assume that it’s your birthright, which, I suppose, this one, uh, kid, with the red shirt thinks. You forget all the work involved and your belly gets flabby and you won’t want to even walk the dog […]

Here’s the deal. Africa isn’t really the biggest place on the hockey map. I know you find this hard to imagine. But I’m working on it all. In fact, I see no reason why Uganda can’t have an Olympic hockey team for the 2018 Games, and if you read the Hamilton Spectator (which, if you […]

Speaking of Valentine’s Day and happenings like this Best Marital Proposal Ever, maybe the only other thing to say is this. We think we’re in charge of our lives, and in a way we are. We’re in charge of what side of the bed we may get out of in the morning and what sort of […]

(The New Vision - Saturday, February 15, 2014) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ There’s new joy in our Mukono home these days. Our Ugandan daughter, Hannah, is now legally in our family. She danced when we showed her the formal adoption paper. This, after waiting more than 500 days. That’s five hundred. Welcome to the world of international adoptions where you need the patience of Job to slog through it all. Adopting a child, especially in Uganda, can be this much of a roller coaster ride. In our case, we’re Canadians in Uganda since 2005. My wife and I met Hannah in 2009, when she was three, in a Jinja orphanage. When she was barely larger than a cat, she had been found abandoned in an Mbarara hospital. Her family? Unknown.

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, February 15, 2014) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Okay, maybe it’s too late for Sochi, but I hope you haven’t forgotten about Olympic hockey in Africa. Yes, dear members of the International Olympic Committee, I’m before you to personally share the good news of a Ugandan ice-hockey team. Of course, in Canada nobody says “ice” before “hockey” because Canadians realize hockey’s natural state is with ice, even the frozen-pond variety. Uganda, on the other hand, is a place where some poor soul with a hockey stick in-hand might yell out, “We’re Manchester United!” before informing you that he’s a “striker.” But I’m working on this and I’m happy to report remarkable progress.

(The UCU Standard - Monday, February 3, 2014) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It’s soon Valentine’s Day and you’re alone. The flowers are out there and so is the wine, and much more. One would have to be blind and half-dead not to notice. But you’re alone, a rose in the parched dessert, and you don’t know how much longer you can hang on.