In Nyamata, a small, dusty town in southern Rwanda, there lies a tidy, red brick church. Its walls are riddled with bullet holes. The interior holds bloody smears on the floor, torn clothing neatly piled on benches, and rows of bones. But Idi Amin's torture chambers are something different altogether.

The rhino has been around for 50-million years. It has only taken the past 40 years to eradicate 90 per cent of them. It's hard to believe an elephant tusk or rhino's horn can fetch as much as $1-million USD on the black market, but soon there won't be any ivory left to harvest.

Small acts of courage by gay rights activists in Uganda are taking place against a backdrop of virulent hatred and fear. The country's tabloids, most notably Rolling Stone (not affiliated with the music magazine) and Red Pepper, thrive on spreading messages of hysteria with regards to the 'gay epidemic'. Rolling Stone published a list of 100 'homos' and called for them to be hanged. David Kato, a prominent Ugandan gay rights activist, was one on the list and he was brutally beaten to death with a hammer shortly after.

A strand in North American culture has tended to romanticize this vigilante style justice. In Uganda, death by mob claimed 438 lives in 2010, and that didn't include those who survived or the deaths that went unreported. Vigilante justice is terrifying, an overwhelming physical manifestation of rage and suspicion.

Recently, physical contact was banned in Uganda. The re-emergence of Ebola, with two cases discovered in Kampala, has sparked fear in the country. And little wonder. It's a disease that could have been created by writers of a Hollywood horror movie -- a communicable disease that often causes fever, bleeding and death. But there is another disease stalking Uganda that doesn't fit the traditional images of outbreak and disease. And it's coming for the children.

In the Congo, a small town called Bunagana is falling to rebel troops. This led to 600 government soldiers and thousands of refugees fleeing into Uganda. What does this have to do with Canada? Everything. The DRC is the stage of a violent and bloody conflict that is being fueled by a rush for resource exploitation. The conflict may seem far away but Canada is right in the heart of it all.

Aid and development are deeply complex and there are no easy answers. The physical donations of goods, be it food or clothes, often have negative impacts on the local economy. It would be far better for aid organizations to buy products locally. Aid shouldn't be about making North Americans comfortable with a culture of mass consumption and waste. It has to be actually making the lives of people in the recipient country better.

New malls, expensive hotels and fancy casinos are springing up everywhere in Uganda. Ex-pats and middle-class Ugandans drive flashy four-wheel jeeps and you can get any food craving satiated. Indian, Italian, Mongolian, Thai: they have it all here. And yet, it is a large urban centre where goats and chickens still roam the streets and witch doctors ply their trade.