Journeyman Stories

Yes I know, I know. You missed me last week. I must admit. I miss my blog too (am I narcissist?). Jim, here I am. I cannot afford another reminder from you. I know you were thinking about how you were going to punish me if I didn't post my blog this week. For many years, great things have happened to me in the month of August. It is then safe to say that I am expecting great things this upcoming month. I don't know what it will be this time, but the expectation is so high. By far, the month of August has been the best month of my life so far. And if nothing special happens, at least I will celebrate a few days. August 6 is our wedding anniversary, August 7 is my wife birthday, August 8 is my eleventh year in Canada and five years as a Canadian citizen, August 15 is my birthday and my younger brother is getting married on August 30. How about that!? The month of July has been a great month as well. It's been a very busy month but I cannot complain at all. I did a few pr...

It is almost midnight on Sunday and I am putting the baby to sleep after a long day at the beach. She is exhausted, and so am I. You might be thinking how am I able to put the baby to sleep and write at the same time. It is simple. After a long time of trials and errors, I have found the secret. Do you want to know what it is? I will tell it to you and it is free of charge: Music When my daughter hears music, everything changes. Life becomes easy for me. However, lately I have discovered that, even though she likes music, there is one particular artist that does the job the best: Bob Marley. When she hears Bob Marley, she just stands still. Nothing can disturb her. All she wants to hear is the reggae song. As soon as the music starts, she widely smiles and she wants to dance. Guess what CD i play the most? You guessed it right; Bob Marley. She could be crying but, as soon she hears "little darling, still it up", she just stops crying. It is so amazing. The other day I playe...

My friend Jim has been promoting his annual event called Patio Power, it finally happened tonight. I was one of the speakers last year, I am glad he invited me again this year. I just came from there. Wow! Things happen for a reason. I had planned to write my blog yesterday, and then the flood happened in Toronto. Wow! I have never seen anything like this. My Internet went down (I guess the server crushed) , so I could not publish anything. And here I am now, talking about the Patio Power. I knew that I was going to be one of the speakers a long time ago, but Jim never gave me my topic. We had a conference call yesterday and he went: "Figure it out. You are the Journeyman". So, I had to figure out what I was going to speak about. To add to the pressure, Jim put me first. I was going to start the event. I was given 8 minutes to speak, I was done in 5. To tell the truth, I was more interested by other speakers' presentations. I don't know how he does it, Jim know...

Yesterday was Canada Day and celebrations were going on all over the place. In our household, it was triple celebration. I am from Burundi, my wife is from Rwanda (both having July 1st as their Independence day), and our daughter was born Canadian. Can you imagine some years down the road, our daughter saying " Hi, my name is Skylar, my father is from Burundi, my mother is from Rwanda, but I am Canadian..". I think she should call herself United Nations. How about that? Talking about Skylar, her new thing now is giving high fives when she is eating. It is so funny. By the time she finishes her food, we are down to about twenty high fives. My wife says Skylar is eating like her father. I think it is a compliment for our daughter. We stayed home on the weekend watching movies. We watched all kinds of movies, but the one that was the most interesting was Sacha Baron Cohen's "The Dictator". It is so hilarious. Even now we are still laughing when we remember s...

I finally went to the doctors last week to check what was going on with my chest pain. I knew there was no danger of anything, but I couldn't let any other day pass by with so much pain. The doctor asked me to do some X-Rays, and in the meantime he prescribed some pills to ease the pain. He warned me though. No alcohol (that was already covered), no driving (also covered), and I had to eat a lot before taking the pills (and I was like, lucky me...). Long story short, them pills would make me dizzy. That was an understatement. Even though the pain was almost gone the next day, I felt like a zombie. I wanted to go to sleep all the time, and this lasted an entire week. It was crazy. The only thing that kept me awake was Green making those three pointers (what a performance!!). Of course, the non Basketball fans won't get this one....Go Spurs. I am back to normal. The pain is gone What else? Oh yes. It was fathers' day this weekend. I received a gift from Skylar who wa...

A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail inviting me to host an event in Ottawa as the Master of Ceremonies. "Ishaka" is the name of the group that put together the event that they called "Beautiful Africa". It was a showcase of African dance and art. I was really looking forward to it. We left Toronto early in the morning on Saturday. Our predictions were that we would be in Ottawa by 2pm the latest. We had a GPS with Snoop Lion voice as our guide. It was so funny to hear him say "woo, woo, slow down man!" By 2.30 we were still on the road. We could not understand why we were not in Ottawa yet. Our GPS was showing exists that we could not understand, and we thought it was going crazy. You can't trust the machine all the time, right? We thought Snoop was high lol. Guess what! He was right. We had missed our exit. Do you know how we figured out that we were lost? We saw a sign saying "Bienvenue au Québec" (Welcome to Québec). We were in Mont...

I know it's Tuesday and I know you were stuck on your computer all day yesterday waiting for this one to come out. I really apologize. But once I explain to you why I did not post my blog yesterday, maybe you will understand. There are people who have an extraordinary art of containing their pain. My wife is one of them. But when she asked me to call 911 last Thursday, I knew something was up. I got to tell you. That was the first time in my life to call 911. So, we rushed to the hospital. Thank God Skylar was at the daycare, otherwise it would have been hard to manage. A few hours later, we walked home, and I thought it was over. Later in the evening, we called a taxi. Back to the hospital...again. This time she stayed overnight. Five o'clock in the morning, she was back home. Finally this was over. So I thought. Guess what! At eleven O'clock we were back to the hospital (this time you maybe thinking that I am making this all up..). Later in the evening, we came bac...