NOTE: This is the break off of the blogs I wrote while in Kenya to, unfortunately the finishing up of telling the story that I'm not getting to until December. These accounts will be more brief, partly because I want to make sure to get through everything so I don't avoid another long lag before finishing the whole thing. I have a couple other blog entries of my interactions with the church in Eldoret and the runners in Iten that I have detailed accounts of, but now that there's no urgency of immediately retaining information, I'll go back to accounting things in chronological order.
I had hoped to go for a run out on the roads around the farm in the morning before we left, but was dissuaded by Heather and Patrick, who said we were going to be trying to get out of there pretty early and I could just run back at Grandy's farm in the afternoon. The problem with getting out of there was that Heather and Patrick were the only ones with the sense of urgency, and trying to keep any sort of time schedule in Kenya is like swimming upstream against a really strong, relaxing, laid back current that it feels so comfortable to just flow with. The hazard of coming for ten days the way Heather and Patrick were doing is that everyone and their crazy aunt wants you to not only come visit but to stay for a while, without much regard for the fact that you're trying to make a whirlwind trip around half the country to see as many people as you possibly can. Eddie and Neville's mother (Patrick's aunt) was certainly no exception, but was nevertheless extremely grateful for the visit. Staying for breakfast though, meant we didn't get out of there until late morning. We piled back into the station wagon, notably minus the clucking chickens in the back with Junior and I. On our way back to Grandy's farm we stopped at a store to pick up a few things and I got out to stretch my legs. I was aware of a group of children curiously and cautiously gathering to examine me, some of which fled when I turned to talked to them. I was starting to feel pretty good with my Swahili, but still had trouble saying very much to them, but still got enough across that they at least had enough of an idea of what I was trying to say (or at least what they thought I was trying to say) to correct me on a couple of things and tell me what I should have said, all the while in various states of somewhat hidden to uncontrollable giggling. I noticed a couple of adults watching, amused by the mzungu's attempt to talk with the kids. I enjoyed it though; I was able to get enough across to feel that I was making some progress, and the kids giggling fell on the right side of that fine line I'd found between when I didn't mind being an object of entertainment and when I was frustrated and humiliated to have a crowd of people laughing at me.
We got back to Grandy's farm and I got ready to head out for my run, but was informed that it would start raining soon and that I should wait until after the rains. I brushed this off, partly because I had already seen the Kenyan unwillingness to do much of anything in bad weather and partly because I was already annoyed that I hadn't gotten to run that morning, and I knew if I left it to all the non-athletes around me to completely dictate my schedule, they would tell me to not run at all. The rain started coming down just a couple minutes into the run though, so I opted to head back. I got back just as the rain got really heavy, and it proceeded to pour down torrentially for the next half hour. I came to find during my time at the farm that the rain comes with amazing regularity, raining hard for about an hour some time between 2:00 and 4:00. It was regular enough that it was pretty much planned into the work day that you would just come in when the rains started and sit down and relax. I was frustrated by how much of a hassle getting my run in was turning out to be, but this was the hazard of working on other people's schedules, and particularly non-athlete schedules. It's one of those times where you realize how much your life revolves around something once you're around people whose lives don't revolve around that and who don't see what you're doing as all that important. To keep with your training plan becomes something like an obsession, a daily compulsion that you stick to religiously as other people tell you that you shouldn't be running so much or taking so much time with it. But I digress.
Once the rains stopped I headed out for a run, not heeding many of the warning and cautions that it was too close to dark and that I should just wait and run tomorrow. You already told me to not run earlier, you're finding out that telling me to not run at all doesn't work, I thought with some sort of misplaced righteous indignation. They had told me to take a left and head out to the main road, but the main road was only a couple hundred yards away, and I think maybe they genuinely expected I would just run to the main road and back and be okay with that. I decided to explore down another side road, which had more houses than I expected and I drew a huge crowd of screaming children. I knew I was an oddity but I didn't realize at the time that I was probably the first white person that these kids had ever seen. I was excited to run with these kids because, as much as I loved the kids I ran with down in Nairobi, this was the area where anyone of the kids I was running with just might be a future Olympian or world record holder. The funny thing here was that some of the adults yelled and waved just about like the kids. Maybe I was the first white person they had ever seen either, certainly if they had never left their farm, which from what I understand isn't completely unrealistic. The kids enthusiastically led me down through some of the corn fields and along some cow paths through the pastures, which were absolutely fantastic to run on and offered some great views of the surrounding countryside. I can only imagine how off beat of a sight it was for the occasional shepherd or farm hand we saw in the pastures and fields to see a mzungu followed by a crowd of giggling children come romping through the field. All the paths were super muddy from the rain, which just added to the care-free, fun spirit of the run. By the time the path we were following opened out of the fields onto the train tracks there were only about three kids still running with me. They ran with me along the track until we hit a major road and then stopped and said they couldn't run any farther. They spoke enough English for me to tell them I was going to run another 15 minutes then come back and asked if they would wait for me and then run back with me. They said they would and I believed they would wait since I imagined I was the most strange and exotic thing to come stumbling past their home in quite some time. I headed up the road, which led me through a small village and across a main paved road. I got quite a few hoots and hollers, and was in such a good mood from the beauty of the run that I smiled and waved and usually shot a couple words of Swahili their way, which they usually got a kick out of. When I came back to the train tracks where I had left the kids, they were nowhere to be found. I kicked myself now for not being more careful about where I was going. Up to this point I had done a pretty good job of making sure I tracked carefully which turns I had taken and made sure I knew how to get back. To think I had let my guard down because I felt like I could just follow a bunch of 7-year-olds around and count on them to get me back safely really left me pretty annoyed at my carelessness. I headed back along the tracks, and up a road from there. There was a group of kids we had passed on the way out who seemed even more excited to see me the second time than the first time, but try as I might to struggle through some Swahili to ask them which way I should go, they were as unhelpful as they were enthusiastic. I felt like I knew the general direction I needed to go, but I knew there was a long ways between me and Grandy's farm, and the light was close enough to fading that I knew I didn't have time for some rambling adventure. I headed back through the fields and along the paths in what I believed to be roughly the right direction. I realized that Grandy's farm is big enough and she is well enough know in the community that someone might be able to point me in the right direction, so I asked for directions from a couple of older farmer-looking guys standing around along a fence-line in one of the fields. They recognized the name, but basically just confirmed the general direction that I was already heading. At one point I ended up taking a wrong route on one of the paths through a corn field and ended up at somebody's hut, where they calmly but firmly told me I was trespassing and helpfully pointed me down to the path through the field I was looking for. My worry grew the more I ran, and my mind began racing through the scenarios of what I should do if it got dark and I was still stuck out on the roads. This was probably the most dangerous position I'd been in the whole trip. Just as the worries were mounting though, I popped out onto a road I recognized, not far from Grandy's, and a wave of relief and exultation washed over me. Just a couple hundred yards from Grandy's I actually ran into Uncle David, who I had only met once but who also lived out on the farm. He was talking with a couple people who I shook hands with and introduced myself to, and he took me over to a couple other houses to introduce me to people there. Walking back to the farm he told me about how if I really wanted to experience Kenyan culture, I needed to really go out and see people, not just sit at home. This guy sounded like he was a lot more in tune with the kind of thing I wanted to do than the rest of the family that seemed more worried with keeping me safe.
When I got home I got some scolding about being out too late and that the area I had gone to wasn't that safe, but I hoped I had made my point a little bit of how important it was to me to get my running in and how I didn't care as much about their ideas of keeping me safe as they did. Maybe I was little bit arrogant, but I felt I had been here long enough to understand what their standards for my safety were and to understand that my own standards were much lower than theirs. All in all I chalked it up as another fantastic experience, if not one I was pretty lucky to make it out of alright.
No comments:
Post a Comment