The most difficult job

Have you ever looked an adult street beggar in the eye? I mean when eyes lock and for some reason none is willing to look away first?

It has happened to me. He was so crippled that only a stone would be unmoved by his disability. Yet what I saw in his piercing eyes was shame. Not just shame, but also two disturbing expressions - one that said, "You will never understand unless you are in my position" and the other sobering one that seemed to suggest, "The fault lies with the state and the likes of you that have left us to languish here on the streets!"

It's better to beg than to steal. Photo by Howard Carson, copyright 2009, all rights reserved

As I walked briskly by, something that had been elusive came back to mind. It is something I had always secretly held – the notion that begging is the most difficult job. But I was about to experience what would prove to me that there is no pathetic existence than the existence of a thief.

It happened when I found a friend of mine, Hilda, waiting to pick her son from Buganda Road Primary School. She had parked her car a few feet away, and as we chatted, a thief broke in and lifted her laptop. He jumped on boda-boda and as they passed us by, Hilda saw him and screamed, "Oh my God he has stolen my laptop" and the noise of "thief thief" quickly rent the atmosphere.

The chase was on, and the boda-bodas joined it. The criminals thought fast; dropping the laptop and abandoning the boda-boda to save their lives. So flabbergasting to me however, was how someone can muster the guts to break into a car when its owner is a few feet away. Don't such people have a conscience at all? Are their actions motivated by survival or does the fault lie with the government for failure to provide jobs?

As I thought about this, I remembered a line from an old movie whose title I forget: "Inside every person is a gift, but it is our responsibility to discover, uncover and recover that gift." And I thought; are thieves or beggars alike thieving and begging because they have failed to discover, uncover and recover the gift within?

I don't know for sure. But from the whole episode of the thief and his accomplice surviving lynching by a whisker, I recognised that it is better to beg than to steal.

Something about weeping and laughing

"Life is not a bed of roses. Some weep others laugh. Some climb others come down. Life is not a bed of roses." That was the writing on the wall in Uncle Emmy's living room back in the day. Its words came tumbling back on the emotional day that was last Sunday.

When "the bullets" (that's what Chipolopolo, the name of the Zambian soccer team, means) rained down on the Elephants (Ivory Coast soccer team) on Sunday to win the 28th edition of the Orange Africa Cup of Nations, I was moved by the dualism that defined that day.

It was the best of times for the Zambians to forget (once and for all) the pain of losing their best soccer team in a plane crush 19 years back. And being first time football champions of Africa added to the intensity of their celebrations. The people of Ivory Coast were meanwhile inconsolable.

The death of Whitney Houston and Zambia winning African Cup of Nations teach us so much about life 

Their best player (and one of the best in the world), Didier Drogba had earlier missed a penalty that would have probably won them the day. Gervinho and Kole Toure, who play for the best teams in England, also failed to convert their spot kicks when it mattered most. So as the bullets laughed with their trophy and the elephants cried with their misery, I could not help thinking about the moral therein.

It was also the moral I gleaned from the news of the death of Whitney Houston that morning. While tears filled my eyes, the devil was probably laughing away at its triumph. I'm not your typical star-struck kind of person, but I loved Whitney. I used to dream about her coming to my wedding day and singing for me and my bride Saving All My Love for You – my favourite of her super hits. I was convinced this dream would come true only for the devil to snatch.

The passing of Whitney also reminded me of how Alan the Cantankerous left us. Just when we think the people that have entertained us so well are defeating the monsters in their lives and rising to reign again, something happens and the devil wins.

But I have learnt that times of weeping and laughing, and times of climbing and coming down are never in vain. They help us take stock and prepare. And are warning to those up there to watch out lest they come tumbling down disgracefully.

My take on Valentine’s Day

My younger brother received a call from a girl asking about his Valentine's Day plans. Until then, I had forgotten it is that time again! And when he asked what I think of the whole thing anyway, it was a perfect opportunity for me to vent:

"Before you even seek my opinion," I began, "maybe you should tell me where a brother can find asylum from the onslaught of the flagrant reddishness and the ridiculous lovey-dovey associated with Valentine's Day. Why don't we even drop the euphemism and call it by its true name - 'Promiscuous Day' – because that is what February 14 is all about!

And before you stone me, hear me out. I'm not here to denigrate love (far be it from me), but to shed light on the superficiality and foreign brouhaha surrounding the whole thing as should be dreaded and shunned by all romantic purists.

Certainly, we have a lot to unlearn from civilisation and more to learn from ancient Africa and its reverence of sex. When Hollywood crept into our living rooms with its strange way of doing things, our women started wearing and painting their lips red, and demanding chocolates and flowers. If you don't get it, look out through your office window on Valentine's Day and you will understand.

The lost generation is endorsing the abnormality that is homosexuality as normality. And no doubt, they are looking forward to February 14 so they can cruise on the 'love boat' and drink 'fine wine' before dimming the lights for more of the ugliest carnal stuff you don't want to imagine!

The deeper love like this, that respects the wedding ring, is threatened

The days when our ancestors used to shove down the precipice randy people are all gone. So people are drinking inequity like water; fornication is served like katogo and virgins are laughed at. The deeper love is threatened; the love that respects the wedding ring, the love that celebrates sex in the confines of marriage, the love that leads to children who are raised by both parents, the love that the posterity of humanity is dependent upon.

These are dangerous times, no doubt. Strange creatures are walking the earth looking for whom to devour. And they are known to pounce more devastatingly on days like Valentine's. Imagine waking up on the morning of February 15 and finding you spent a night with a ghost!

Step out, yes, but with utmost sense. Otherwise, thank you for allowing me to vent.

Learning from new friends

I made two good friends in the last fortnight. Folashade from Nigeria, a chubby bubbly woman taught me without meaning to, that the magnetism of a woman is not in looks, but in her charm and confidence. If you are not comfortable in your skin; if you are being deterred by the pimples on your face; or you are starving yourself to knock off that bump; if you rock bikinis to get men to notice, girl, learn from Folashade. She was not envying when she told me Uganda has the most curvaceous women she has seen. She was just observing. But those women have nothing on my friend with her mix of charm, brains and confidence.

With the friends I made during the January 2012 WJI workshop in Kampala

Meet Kunle. Also from Nigeria. I was fascinated by his story of two conversions. Kunle quit a lucrative albeit boring job as a chemist to start from scratch as a journalist. Without rudimentary training in journalism, he was ridiculed as a rookie that will never make headway in his new career. Kunle kept quiet and got to work; spending precious nights studying the works of award-winning journalists, trying to crack the embedded mastery. When Kunle started winning prestigious journalism accolades, the skeptics grudgingly doffed their hats for him. Today, he is one of the best education reporters in his country.

Kunle's second conversion was quitting his Muslim faith and becoming a born-again Christian. In a country of predominant Muslims with many that still view Christians as infidels that deserve no less retribution than being stoned to death and having their churches burned down, it was not easy for Kunle. For years, he read the Bible secretly, and one night knelt down and said the prayer of conversion. All this time, his parents and siblings had no idea. But they couldnot miss the amazing transformation in him (what Kunle had become was akin to what the Bible calls the "light of the world"). And when the whole truth was eventually revealed, rather than condemn Kunle they wanted to be like him!

Take a good look around. Are you one of those chained by lack of self belief when you should be moving forward? Have you invested so much in a boring career and are afraid of foraying into something new that will send your adrenaline surging?

Listen, we are beautiful, clever and confident. Let us step out of the darkness into the marvelous light that is ready to receive whoever dares.

The most unloved woman

Mr President, as you celebrated 26 years in power this week, I spent the day thinking about my country and what should make me a proud Ugandan, but went to bed with a disturbed mind.

You have betrayed us, Mr. President

Every time I hear the aching beauty with which the military band sings the National Anthem, tears emerge in the corners of my eyes. I look at the little National Flag on my desk and I’m saddened at how its significance has been reduced to a mockery by the actions of the regime. What happened to the good intentions that led you to the bush?

Mr President, the sanity you ushered in, in 1986 has transmogrified into insanity. You have betrayed “all those combatants who shed their blood in the struggle to make Uganda a better country” in whose memory Maj. Gen. Pecos Kutesa’s book, Uganda’s Revolution 1979-1986: How I Saw It, is dedicated.

The walk-to-work protests, the strikes from teachers, doctors, traders, the drugless hospitals and health centres, the gaping ditches in the centre of our roads, the cancerous poverty, the corruption, the power blackouts, the bullets your soldiers aim at peaceful protesters, the lives that have been lost, (the list is endless) are conspicuous reflections of how miserably your regime has failed.

You have also betrayed the civilians without whose support the struggle would not have been a success in a record five years (1981-1986). These are the rugged men and women that today spend their days in the blistering sun breaking the dry earth with small hoes, drenched in sweat, but still struggle to afford a bar of soap. I’m a country boy and I know what I’m talking about.

All they are told about is the peace you brought. But you know what, that peace song echoes in their ears like a bogus dirge. They too want their children to attain quality education and get jobs on meritocracy; they too want to get decent housing and to drink sugared tea. It’s very painful, Mr President, to watch them smirched by the grime of need; sleeping hungry while your incriminated top officials are scot-free; busy rearing potbellies.

Beware, Mr President. The despair of these masses, manifesting in form of street protests, could explode and send you down the precipice, unless you begin seriously loving the most unloved woman whose name is Uganda. She has suffered enough, she needs love.