Running for Life and Happy Birthday, Dad

I've used this photo before, but it is one of the few
post-run photos that we have since I don't
usually like to take photos of myself when I look disgusting

When I was 11 or 12, I was home-schooled for a couple years. Being an introvert whose favorite pastime was reading anything she could find, my parents thought I needed some kind of physical activity in my life. They decided on Morning Runs with Dad—he was going anyway, so it didn’t mess up his schedule at all. I was initially pretty excited. In my last year at the local international school, I’d been forced to run the mile in the PE tests. Being genetically predetermined to a debilitating strain of extreme competitiveness, I had to win at every test. I was stressed out about the mile test, but I did well. I might have been first for the girls. Even if I wasn’t, I choose to remember it that way because—debilitating strain of competitiveness. So I was already kind of intrigued by the idea of running until you feel like you want to die and then running a bit more to see if you can break the barrier between Life and Running to Death.  Running is a sport for the masochistically inclined. My dad sweetened the deal by promising to buy me legitimate running shoes if I ran with him for 6 weeks or 8 weeks or however long it takes to make a habit—he had done his research on the number of weeks, but I don’t remember exactly what it was.

Current running shoes.

Every morning we would get up around 5:30am and speed off to either run the steep volcanic hills of Hegarmanah (our neighborhood) or hop on his Vespa and putter over to the track in front of the Gedung Sate, where we would run around in dusty circles, both of us with our genetic debilitating competitiveness, trying to outrun any one who looked like he or she wasn’t just wearing matching jogging clothes to sit at the park and drink tea with friends (as I recall, the track was mostly filled with those types of people).  Running hills taught me about perseverance and “what goes up, must come down,” and running at the track taught me “delayed gratification.” After finishing a run at the track, I always wanted my dad to buy me one of the beautiful refreshing-looking bottles of water that the kaki-lima (means ‘5 feet’-for the two feet of the seller plus the 3 feet of his modified bicycle or wooden push cart) would pull out of the depths of the ice box welded to his bike, waving them around so we could see the beads of condensation glistening in the morning sun looking extra-thirst quenching after a long run dodging fashionable people in track suits buying glue balloons or inflatable Teletubbies for their children. My dad would always say, “Let’s just go home and get a drink there. It will taste so much better after you have waited for it on the ride home—delayed gratification, you know.” My dad is not really a water connoisseur.  He’s actually just a cheapskate, but that is also a trait that he genetically passed down to me, so I don’t blame him too much—though I LIKE CHEESEBALLS MORE THAN PRETZELS EVEN IF YOU GET MORE GRAMS FOR YOUR MONEY WITH THE PRETZELS!

Of course, after I achieved the running shoes, what should happen? I wanted to stop running. But would my dad let me stop? No. And what’s more, he shamelessly manipulated me, challenging me to run farther one day or faster then next, playing on my competitive disability. In those days, he could keep up a running commentary the whole time we were running. He had a captive audience to listen to his thoughts on politics, sports, history, art, best bands of the 60’s and 70’s, and what I should do with all the rest of my life. Sucking wind at his side, I couldn’t try to get a word in edgewise, and he waxed eloquent.  And then what should happen? I didn’t just get into the habit of running. I got addicted.

That's me in the green jacket marathoning it.

I went off to boarding school for high school and while the rest of my friends slept in until breakfast, I was out the door by 5:30, running around our school track, watching king fishers streak their bright blue feathers through the dark green jungle around the track. Then I went to college, and I got up as soon as it got light there and sometimes before it was light (the Equator is the only place to live if you like consistency in sun rises, and I really do). I ran around with the ROTC people, while that one guy that yells at them all to run faster, tried to get me to join up. I don’t know what his exact military position is because I’m not really savvy with all that yet. Josh is only slightly helpful about these things. I still don’t know if a 1^st LT is better than a 2^nd LT because first place is better than second place but second grade is higher than first grade. So logic fails me here. But obviously I didn’t join up because I don’t like to wear the same clothes as everyone else and I also don’t think I could pull off those uniforms anyway. Some people can make them look good, but those are not short stumpy girls. Later I ran around Syria, Jordan, China—I ran on an old gladiator track more than 2000 years old with gashes in the few remaining columns where chariots had crashed into them in races of old in southern Lebanon. I ran through the mountains of Yemen with Captain Roy. I ran by the Mediterranean in southern Spain, by the Nile in Khartoum, down Beale Street for the St. Jude’s marathon in Memphis, around cows and mongooses in India, and now I’m running on a red dirt/mud road through the bush in Mundri, South Sudan.

Running buddies at school

Running in Mundri pretty fun. Yes, I’m getting old and decrepit and my knees and my heels hurt if I run every day, so I usually just go every other day. My shoes are the disgusting mess you see pictured in the photograph. I jump pot holes and puddles, scramble over rocks, slough through sand pits, leap ant tunnels, and dodge women carrying jerrycans of water balanced on their heads, the odd motorcycle, or sometimes, a caravan of UN soldiers with two tanks and a bunch of trucks full of blue helmeted men.

Everyday when I run I am a novelty to people I pass, even though they see me running frequently. The children especially get very excited, yelling to everyone that “the khawaja” is passing, while sprinting to the side of the road to wave and shout hello. Other older children are on their way to school, dressed in bright green or blue uniforms, depending on the grade and the school. Many of them think it is hilarious good fun to join me for a brief morning jog. Very few last more than 30 seconds, though I’ve had bigger boys run for about 5 minutes, asking me to give them my watch, a soccer ball, all of my money, etc. The ones who go to the primary school that happens to be on my route, will sometimes stick with me, if I’m close enough to their school when they start, dropping off when they reach their turn off road.

Running to Mundri 1 PS

One day when a little girl started running with me near the beginning of my run, I kept expecting her to drop off. She was wearing her red skirt and blue shirt with black jelly shoes and carrying her book bag in one hand and a yellow ruler in the other. She dropped behind for a bit as I passed on a narrow band around a large pond in the middle of the road, and I said, “Goodbye—you were super tough!” But she didn’t stop there like I thought. She popped up beside me a few minutes later, sweating and panting, but there was a look in her eye that I recognized—the look of someone with a debilitating strain of competitiveness. She was going to run with me all the way to her school or die trying, so help her God. I’m sure that God was probably really impressed by her tenacity, but He decided to let me help her. I slowed the pace a little bit, slid over closer to her and said, “Here-let me take your bag.” She handed it over without a word and settled in to make it to the top of the first hill. I sped up a bit and we hit the second hill. She kept pace, ignoring the other kids who shrieked with laughter and joined us for the obligatory 30 seconds, telling the boys who sprinted by snickering that she had started running way back by her house. We got closer to her school and I kept encouraging and pushing and we sprinted in to touch the wall, followed closely by a pack of joiners. I stopped my clock and snapped a terrible photo of the two of us for posterity, and also because someday I want Daya to represent South Sudan, running at the Olympics. And I can show that photo to all the excited reporters interviewing her after she wins gold. Then I jumped back on the road because I still had another 4 miles I wanted to run.

Daya is the one in the front with one eye half-closed--
I didn't say it was a flattering photo, but I couldn't
see the photo in the morning sunlight, so I just guessed.

But seriously: a nine year old girl ran 2 miles at an 8mph pace in jellies and a skirt, holding a ruler and a book bag (for part of the run until she gave it to me--and it was not empty). Imagine what she could do if she had proper running attire and a rubber track! And a friend of mine who is starting a soccer league asked me if I would help coach a girl’s team, and though I’m hardly a soccer role model, I think I’ll try to help him out next year (this year I will not be in one place long enough to fully unpack). But I want to see girls here play and have fun and develop debilitating strains of extreme masochistic competitiveness that they will later genetically pass down to their children.

My team practicing on the local basketball field.

And if you want to support a local team with uniforms, shoes, or a soccer ball, let me know.

As for me, I have a few more years left to run, and I plan to enjoy them. My dad recently thought he was finished for life, but then I came to visit and made him start up again. Of course then he went and had heart surgery, from which he is trying to recover, but maybe I can get him jogging again next time I visit because it’s now my turn to monologue about history, linguistics, traveling, movies/TV shows that he would hate, and all the dangerous countries I plan to visit in the near future.

Happy birthday, Dad. Because running is still fun, and it’s also a method of exercising that is way cheaper than getting a gym membership.

I also inherited his photogenic good looks