N'Djamena Marathon

 

Jesse wanted a photo of us under the sign that said "Marathon de la Paix"
What a marathon it was!

A few days ago I saw an ad on Facebook for a race to be held in my city on the weekend in solidarity with Sudan put on by Sudanese youth living in N’djamena. It was advertised as a “marathon 5k.” I figured the distance would be 5km because Chadians usually say “marathon” to mean a running race of any distance, but you never know. The advertisement was sufficiently vague on other information as well, but it had a start and end location, a beginning time and a date. In the comments people were asking for more information about how to run, and the response was being sent a screenshot of the same advertisement that we were all already looking at. I decided to send a message, and I was sent a phone number to call. I don’t like calling numbers I don’t know, so I sent a text message. I got no response and I forgot about it until I had a call later that night. Usually I don’t answer numbers I don’t recognize, but I did for some reason. Our conversation was as follows:

Me: Bonsoir Salam Allo (because I didn’t know what language to speak when I don’t know who is calling).

Him: Bonsoir.

Long pause….

Me: Uh..excuse me, but can you please tell me who is calling?

Him: Mohamed Idriss. (This doesn’t help me much—including being the name of our current president, it is a very common name here). Who are you?

Me: Uh…yeah…but you called me?

Mohamed Idriss (not the president): Oh yeah. I’m calling about the marathon.

And then the rest of the conversation was about how to register (give name, age, and contact number) and also he mentioned that they had met a guy who is really great at organizing races and the race was going to be 10km. I signed up and signed up Jesse, my friend from Nigeria who has run with me a couple times. The first time he ran, I was thinking he was going to be miserable and stop early because last time I had guys tell me they wanted to run with me and that it would be no problem because they play football a lot, they died after 1km. Jesse had said he wanted to run and 5km was no problem because he plays football, but he is also a good runner, so he was fine, and I had to keep up a faster pace than I wanted to the whole time to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself. I did also try to remind myself that he is 10 years years younger than me and that helped sooth the ego a bit too.

Hissein, Jesse, random vertically challenged nasara, Tresor

The night before the race, my evil Cameroonian neighbors decided to have a loud drunken orgy that made everyone miserable. They were still going, screaming and drunk singing and peeing all over everyone’s houses when I left at 6:40, and I was not in a great mood. I knew there was no point in getting to the race on time, but I did anyway. My friend Tresor who is a great runner and runs all the N’djamena races told me that it was for sure 10km and he had gotten there at 6:30am and was already texting me about it. 

Jesse and I got there and found a group of people looking for their race numbers. At one point a line formed but then the organizers started yelling out names (Mohamed Idriss, Mohamed Abdullah, Mohamed Issa, etc) and the line system fell apart quickly. Eventually we found our numbers—pretty quickly actually: we were 002 and 003 because I was one of the first to register for the race. We were also given a couple of little vest top things, which we were told were for advertising. Jesse had “American cola” (a local coke brand) and I had “Planet” which is also a type of beverage. We asked about pinning the numbers on our shirts, and were directed to the guy with a stapler, who was stapling numbers to people. Two minutes later, the stapler was broken. Were there any spare staplers? No. They started breaking off bits of staples and handing them out so people could pinch them with their fingers and mold them into pins to hold the numbers. I was not good at this and Jesse and Hissein helped. Hissein agreed to run in Steven’s place because Steven wasn’t feeling well, but he’d told me he would run. Steven, Hissein, and Tresor are deaf friends of mine who are all great athletes and helping to film a dictionary for Chadian Sign Language. (We want to make a dictionary app, so if you know anyone who can help make apps, please tell me.) Tresor is well known in the running community because he is an excellent runner and he trains people. Hissein and Steven prefer basketball to running, but wanted to come along for fun.

Stapling by hand

At 8am, the race still hadn’t started and it was getting hotter. By 8:30, just before we lined up, an announcement was made: this race is not going to be 10km. It is going to be 2 kilometers 300 meters. (According to my watch, it didn't even end up being 2km, and I didn’t cut off the corners like other people did.) 

Post-race with Tresor and Hissein laughing as they bent down
to be in the same photo with me and Jesse.
Jesse said he bent down too to have some self-respect,
which is why it looks like we are the same height when actually he is taller than me.

So everyone is lined up, now ready for a short sprint to Place de la Nation, and the start line happens to be right next to the city morgue. So as people are jogging around and pumping each other up, cars are driving up full of mourners with photos of the deceased precariously perched on their roofs. It was an awkward juxtaposition. 

This is the starting line where we kept having to move over
to let mourners through

The guy who informed us of our race distance change clapped two wooden blocks together and we all sped off. While there were a couple of policemen at one corner, the other roads we were on weren’t really blocked off and motorcycles and cars dodged us as we dodged potholes and it was all very exciting. 

The beautiful and amazing Fraida

We crossed the finish line and went to chat with Tresor and Hissein who were way ahead of us (note that Jesse and I are also half their height) and unfortunately they didn’t win. Our friend Fraida (not deaf but still very cool) who also runs in our neighborhood won for the women—not at all a surprise. She is a badass runner who has run in competitions around the world. She went to train in Kenya a few months ago, but told me it wasn’t worth it because it was too easy for her. We took a lot of photos, and as the only nasara, I was invited to be in many photos. I was also asked to do an interview for a radio station in Arabic. I specified that my Arabic is a mishmash of multiple accents and grammatical patterns, but they were happy. I refused to answer a question giving my honest opinion about the current president (Mohamed Idriss) and his Sudan policies because I am a foreigner and I don’t want to get kicked out of the country. I was able to say how great the organizers did (I mean is it really important to have decided on a route before the race day?) and how I’m sure they will do other great things. I should note that there were some Chinese guys there as well. I chatted a bit with one of them, but they don’t usually speak French and so people don’t often try to speak with them so I doubt they got too many interview requests. When I told this story to my friend Naomi, she said it reminded her of the time I was interviewed for Chinese TV when I accidentally joined the communist party, which was funny because I was remembering it too. I always managed to look really gross and sweaty when I’m interviewed for the news and usually have nothing important to say either. I don’t think I wrote about that for the blog because it happened before I started blogging, but I have it in a journal somewhere. Maybe I’ll publish it one day.

All miked up and waving my hands around for a radio interview, as one does.

Anyway, we planned to leave after Tresor, Hissein and Steven left to go to work. But the nasara effect worked against me and I was stopped by a sweet young Sudanese girl who asked me please to stay for the presentation about the desire for unity for Sudan and Chad. I didn’t feel I could say no and Jesse graciously stayed with me. He was really fun to have around because we could joke around in English and he was very careful to take lots of photos of me in awkward moments. 

Post-run with Jesse

Our lovely Sudanese girl found a couple of t-shirts for us, which was nice. Jesse got one in French and I got one in Arabic. Then we were handed bottles of red soda (Planet brand!) and little boxes of food while speeches started. They were long and flowery and I enjoyed the heckling from some guys sitting behind us, one of whom I’ve also run with in my neighborhood.  He’s actually caught me at the end of a couple of my runs when I was planning to stop early and dragged me home. Finally speeches were over, and it was time for awards. They handed them out to the 3 fastest women and the 3 fastest men. The average time to complete the race for them was 5 minutes something. 

Then they announced two more winners: the veteran category. This was a nice way of saying the winners for the two oldest competitors in the race. Guess who won for the women? That’s right—I won best geriatric woman runner for the Marathon. A truly remarkable achievement. I’m sure you’re all very impressed. And if any of you are slightly older than me, pat yourself on the back because anyone could run 2km and if you ran and were old, you won. 

Surrounded by the press who were there to note my achievement

With the Veteran Man winner
whose face shows how honored he was to receive this award.

Finally we were able to leave after the awards. Jesse dragged me away saying I talk too much, but I mean, I was an award winner. People wanted to be near me to bask in the glow of my success. Jesse and I decided just to walk home, as my house is not far from Place de la Nation. I think in all, including our 2km race, we didn’t even go 8km by the time we got home. And also—while Jesse was taking photos of me getting my award, people took our food. Oh well—they can never take my Veteran Medal from me. I earned that. By being old.

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