Sunday started understandably late after the late night/early morning we had just completed. Talking with Allan about it, him and Roger are both solidly Christian but don't go to church regularly. I went out into the hills past the trash dump, which was becoming my favorite route. That section is always as unpleasant as you might expect an area filled with the smell of burning garbage might be, but you are quickly through there and up onto a collection of roads through the corn fields that are about as good of a place to run as you can imagine, with the occasional farmer or herder politely smiling or, more often, staring in bewilderment. There were more endless dirt roads up in the section than I would be able to explore in my time in Eldoret, and I was getting comfortable enough with the area to deviate from my standard route to explore some. I went down one steep, rocky road that descended all the way back to the creek that ran along the edge of town, and it looked to me like on the other side it headed up into a crowded, extremely poor neighborhood, maybe even the edge of the slum Roger had warned me about, so I turned around since there were so many other good places to explore. Going back to the last fork I took another road that led me to a main road, wide but still dirt and very rough, that headed southwest, which excited me because that was the direction of the main highway that led toward the Kip Keino school. My hope at the beginning of the trip had been to be able to run home from Kip Keino, but Roger had told me there was no way other than the main highway, which wasn't an appealing option. I figured as I was exploring it wouldn't hurt to explore my way in that direction to see if I could find a route. All of a sudden I felt like European explorer searching for the elusive Northwest Passage. About the time I was ready to turn around I came to an intersection, with the roads in all directions disappearing into the distance. There was an old man leaning against a post at the corner who looked like one of those guys who might have been standing there for about the last 10 years just watching people go by. I greeted him in Swahili, and was excited when I was able to catch him asking me where I was going. The problem is my Swahili ran out, but that's really not a problem because people mix their Swahili and English so much that switching over was no problem at all, and the fact that he didn't have to repeat his question in English was one of my first successful real life Swahili encounters. I also was pretty happy with myself because from talking with Ronnie the night before, I knew the neighborhood I lived in was called West Indies. I asked him in English how far to the highway and he said it was still a long distance. We chatted about why I was here, and he told me that if I came at 7 or 8 in the morning, there would be lots of people running along this road. I still hadn't had any chance encounters with the elite Kenyans, or really seen that many people running at all. That was something coming into the trip that I hoped would happen, but I really didn't have any idea or plan as to how it would come about other than to go out and run and see if I met them, which I was finding was not going to happen running in the afternoons and evenings. Still, as long as I was going to school with Roger my options for running in the morning were limited to maybe a 30 minute shakeout if I was willing to wake up before 6:00. I mentioned that I the reason I wanted to find the highway was because I wanted to find a route to the Kip Keino school, and the man said that he had worked with Kip back in the day, and that if I mentioned his name Kip would definitely recognize it. Afterwards I wondered if Kip was the kind of popular local figure that you could find about half the old population of the Eldoret area who would claim to have worked with him at some point, but then again at this point I couldn't have been more than five miles from the Keino farm, so it's a very plausible story. I thanked him and turned for the long trek home.
That night, as we had planned early in the week, Roger and Mr. Hayato and I headed into town to watch the Women's World Cup final, which happened to be between Japan and the US, which made for a very fun outing. Roger strikes me as the kind of sports fan that needs little excuse to watch just about any sporting event and being able to watch a football match of that magnitude with friends that were solidly in opposite camps was something he was eager to do. I'd heard results from the women's world cup mentioned on the news, but didn't really take notice until the US beat Brazil in the quarterfinals. I wondered how much attention they were getting in the US, and my guess was not very much, especially for being in the world cup semifinals. We headed to one of Roger's favorite clubs, which was understandably empty considering it was a Sunday night. Still, it was weird after the chaos and crowdedness of the night before to be in a similar setting but with the whole room empty. Upbeat dance music was still playing annoyingly loud, but other than that the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. One of Roger's friends that was there (Roger seems to have a friend pretty much anywhere we go) came over to say hi, and stir up a little trash talking, but Hayato was far too polite for trash talking of any magnitude to start. The game was a very entertaining one, with the US missing a lot of opportunities in the first half, then taking the lead in regulation and extra time only to see Japan equalize both times. As the game went on Hayato and I both got more into, but he was far more animated than I was. By the end of regulation every scoring opportunity for either side had him out of his seat and jumping around the room yelling. The game ended with Hayato dancing around the room cheering and me with my head in my hands after Japan won on penalty kicks. I really wasn't too disappointed though because Hayato was far happier about Japan winning than I would have been about the US winning and I'm in the overwhelming majority of Americans that don't really care about women's soccer past the name on the front of the jersey, so it was a good night for all. The game started at about 9:30 local time, so we didn't get home until close to midnight. With school the next day I went to bed right away, but Roger started cooking up some dinner. I don't know if I've made mention of it yet, but meal times are much later here. Dinner is typically around 9 or 10, and I can remember several times I wished dinner would be ready so that I could eat and go to bed. Lunch is typically around 2:00, and breakfast is at 10 or 11, with people waking up early I think often not eating until then. Even on school days, Roger usually takes nothing but coffee in the morning and then eats some bread at our 11:00 break which basically constitutes his breakfast. I always eat some bread in the morning before we leave, and am still always starving by break time and eager to eat more. Roger, called me just as I was getting to sleep that dinner was ready, so I decided to get up and eat some, considering I hadn't really had dinner yet. Keeping up with Roger can be a challenging task sleep-wise, because he routinely goes through the school day on 4 hours of sleep or less and doesn't seem to me to really show ill effects from it, though he does mention that he's tired.
Let me insert another aside here about word usage here. One of my favorite Kenyan vocabulary mannerisms is that they rarely say they are going to eat or drink something, they always say they will "take" something. For example in the morning I'll be asked, "Have you taken tea?" The only place I've heard similar usage in the US is among ultra-marathoners, who talk about what they will taking a gel, or taking some water over the course of an endurance race. Another similar thing that equally amuses me is if they are going to pick something up, they say they are going to "pick" it, as in "I need to go pick the kids from school." I'm not sure if these are British sayings that have carried over or if they are originally Kenyan, but either way I really enjoy them.
No comments:
Post a Comment