Somehow I woke up at about 8:45 Sunday morning and found out it was already to time to get ready for church. We were heading over to Elijah's church on the other side of town, which took over an hour to get to. I found out that Ken, Mark, and Elijah (guys from Rainier Ave) had all grown up in the same church, so it was cool to get to see it and meet some of the people that had grown up with them or watched them grow up. We got there a little bit early (I think that might have actually been the first time I showed up on time for anything) and Elijah showed us around a little bit, including introducing us to some of his friends. It was a fairly big church facility, with a soccer field, basketball court, separate small auditorium and a building of mostly classrooms and meeting rooms. I think they said they have three services, and the service we were in probably had close to 500 people. During the announcements time they had visitors stand up, and specifically introduced our group as the friends of Elijah. It was funny thinking of him being back in a church full of people who knew him as a little kid, because I had never thought of him like that. The church was doing a fundraiser to help people suffering from the famine in east Kenya. If I remember right the sermon was focused on that, about how we need to be generous with what we have. After the service we headed up for a meeting for visitors with a couple of pastors. It was a little bit different than your standard visitors visit since the majority of us were friends of Elijah. The pastor we were talking with was a pretty young guy who it turned out had grown up with Ken, Mark, and Elijah so it was kind of funny talking with him. One of the other visitors was a guy who had just converted from Islam, and I wished I had been able to talk with him more. I've never thought about it that much before, but when I heard that he had just converted I was fascinated by what would lead him to that and how that played out with his family and community.
After a while more of talking with friends of Elijah and other people after church we all headed to a food court at a nearby mall for lunch. Going to one of the counters to get food we just sat down and were immediately accosted by hovering attendants who shoved menus in front of us urging us to order from their restaurant. It was a pretty amusing process but, like lots of other shopping experiences, it was kind of suffocating because it was hard to just casually peruse the menus and choose. It was a funny experience because it felt just like what they do every Sunday, going out for lunch after church. It was interesting to me to go from being on my own in a different culture to being in such a big group, because now rather than wishing I had someone I could share the cultural differences and challenges with, I was on the other side of it where if anything we had too big of a group and to where we could interact with each other enough that we didn't have to interact with the outside too much at all if we didn't want to. To me it just confirmed what I had already thought, that it's best to travel with someone else, but not more than a couple people.
We headed down to the Massai Market after that, and I found that it was much more fun to head through the market now that I had spent more time in Kenya and was less bothered by the haggling and cajoling of the vendors. The bartering is still something that bugs me a little bit, especially there, because the system still seems to me to be basically based on deception, with vendors telling you anything they needed to, about having a bad day and having not sold anything, or needing money to feed their children. The only way to deal with them is to basically ignore what they say, because basically none of it is true, or at least so little it's not worth picking through the lies, and you ignore them and figure out on your own what something is worth. Still though, I now found the process entertaining, because I now didn't really care about hurting the feelings of the vendors by hard bargaining, and the harder I bargained the more I found that rather than offending them, that's exactly what they expected. What made this a good practice for me was because I didn't have any money, so even if they sucked me into a bad deal I wasn't actually making any deal. It was also interesting for me to see how low people would put their prices when I kept saying I didn't want to buy something. One principle that Patrick told me that I think I'll stick to or at least keep in mind if I go back to actually buy stuff is that you should spend more than 200 schillings on anything, and you can probably get most things for 200 or less. It was a fun experience, but Heather told me afterward that I looked just like our dad. As I thought back through my haggling and joking with the vendors it was eerily similar to the way my dad would listen and debate with any of the missionaries or activists that would come to our door. I felt just a little bit bad that I was taking up their time when I didn't have any intention of buying anything, but these people were pushy enough that it didn't really bother me. In most cases I was repeatedly telling them their price was too high or that I wasn't going to buy something, and they would follow me lowering the price as we walked.
We got back as it was getting dark, and the others were still dealing with the jet lag enough that they wanted a nap. I headed out for a run around the estate, not dreading it too much since it would be pretty relaxed and I'd done enough running outside of the estate that it wasn't quite so monotonous. This was my first true night run and it was pretty cool. The darkness made the slow pace seem not quite as slow. There weren't quite as many kids out, and Mo and a couple of the older boys ran with me more than usual, more like they really wanted to run than to just play around. It was cool to be able to encourage them along as they worked hard to stay with me. Rather than running ahead of me like many of the other kids always did, they would stay next to me and stay with me as long as they could. It was maybe the most enjoyable run I'd had in the estate. Afterward Mo and one of the other boys said they wanted to get stronger and asked me how, so I showed them how to do pushups and squats, and told them those would make them strong if they did them every day. They were pretty enthusiastic and committed to doing it, but I'm never sure if kids cling to the things I say and hang onto those words, or if they forget what I've told them as soon as I'm out of sight. It doesn't really bother me either way though, because I figure whatever I tell them is more than they had before about how to exercise and become a top athlete, and even what I do can inspire a handful of those kids to become good athletes then it was worth it. The biggest thing that I've found myself trying to impart to kids is just the simple concept that if they want to become strong runners they should run every day. At the age they are to me it really doesn't matter at all how far they go, as long as they are out there running every day that's more than enough. And whether they become good runners or not I like to think that it will set them up for healthier lives.
Overall the week of training in Nairobi hadn't been too bad. I hadn't increased my mileage at all and I hadn't gotten in any speed work, but as far as I was concerned holding steady on mileage was good enough for a week in Nairobi. I saw the time in Nairobi as a potential training disaster and I definitely avoided having a disaster. Plus, maintaining mileage at 75 miles per week isn't too bad, at that point even maintaining is building my aerobic strength. Without a doubt my training was behind where it was this time last year, but I don't see that as such a bad thing because last year turned out pretty disappointing so I think it would be foolish to be doing things just the same as last year.
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