Running…. until you are broke

Running…. until you are broke

“Are you happy?”

My eyes had been on that sign since I left the city.  The sign was affixed on the top panel above the two large windshields of the Easy Coach bus.  I was seated on 4B, the fourth-row seat, isle side.  Below the sign was a telephone number after the word ‘SMS’.  

I assumed that it was a ‘happiness’ number.  There seemed to be no ‘sadness’ number.  I had no happiness to report.  I had an ‘otherwise’ to report.  The fare had been hiked from the usual 1250/= to 1350/= despite my booking a month in advance.  The bus that was to leave the city at 8.30am was leaving at 11.00am.  

The closest we got to an apology was a megaphone announcement that, “Basi letu leo anachelewa sababu ya mbua.  Lakini yeye anakuja tu.  Apana choka.”

Why should our plans be disrupted by the rains that we have no control over?  The very rains that have been forecast over time, including that it would be raining over this weekend culminating into this Tuesday, the December 24?  What surprise was there that it was raining?  This is what we expected!

“Excuses!,” I found myself murmuring even as that announcement was repeated.  

The morning rains had flooded the bus station.  The additional showers around nine did not help matters.  The station was filthy.  Dirty!  Muddy!  Slippery!  An eyesore.  Unpaved.  Dirty, with specs of rubbish seen on the various water puddles, which dominated the available spaces.  

Every step around the station, as one walked around upto the boarding time, subjected us to a forced walk through the muddy filth.

“We deserve better!,” I cried out loud as I got into the bus with shoes full of mud.

The journey would thereafter be smooth, though slow due to the jam-packed roads.  We generally faced a queue of vehicles from Nairobi to Nakuru.  But I am assuming so, since I only witnessed the traffic jam from city centre towards Westlands, and was completely knocked out by the consistent persuasion of sleep from the warmth in the bus, made worse by the slow soothing vibrations of the movement.  I found myself in Nakuru at three.

“Four hours to Nakuru is a joke!,” I yawned as I disembarked at the Nakuru petrol station where the coaches stopover for a thirty-minute break.  Another three and a half hours of travel would bring me to Eldoret for my first stop of the journey.

Early morning

A taxi carried me through the short five-minute journey to Eldoret bus stage.  I immediately got into the 7-seater matatu as the fourth passenger at about five-ten.  I paid a fare of five hundred for the short 140-kilometer journey.  The vehicle would leave Eldoret stage immediately thereafter with three seats still empty. 

“No way!,” I made a mental observation.

But I would be vindicated as the matatu would make three stops along the way to pick up three passengers.  One near Eldoret airport, one at Mosoriot and a final person at Kapsabet.

The early morning travel was smooth, on roads that were virtually free of traffic.  But this would not last forever.  We soon got to the worst road in Kenya, the Kakamega road just near Migosi junction as you get to Kisumu town.  The road has been ‘destroyed’ for construction with no alternative road for vehicles!  Vehicles have to find their own way through the half kilometer of total chaos of no road and no rules!

“We deserve better,” I do another cry out loud as the matatu bumps us up and down so violently that I feel the pain with every hit onto the seat.  I alight at Kisumu stage just past seven.

I was heading to my rural home.  From Eldoret I had three options to get home.  Go to Bungoma, then Mumias, then Butere, then Manyulia my local market.  After that, a four-kilometer walk would get me home to Diriko village.  That route would mean a change of three vehicles, all unreliable in terms of availability and timeliness.  

The second option would be to travel first to Kakamega, then Butere, then Manyulia.  This alternative would also suffer the same uncertainty as the first option, probably worse due to relatively low number of travelers on the route.  And… and these matatus ‘insist’ on being full to capacity before departing from the station.  You can wait a whole day for the 14-seater to get fourteen passengers.  

The third option was what I was taking on this Friday morning.  Get to Kisumu, which is quite a busy route from Eldy, then use the Busia road from Kisumu, another busy road.  Alight at the local market of Dudi, walk the five kilometers and you are home!  I was soon home after paying another 250/= from Kisumu.

“Robbers!,” I lament over the fare for this 50km distance.

Now I had landed at the locality.  I was at the hood – and the hood does not come cheap!

“Brother!,” someone draws my attention from across the road, as I alight and cross the tarmac to get to the market side of the road, ready for my walk home.

“Eh!, Hi there yourself!?,” I respond, trying to figure out this relative.

“I must take you home.  I am happy that you have brought skuku,” he zooms his bike to my direction, where I have now already crossed the road.  

He has just beaten another three or so bike people, who were drawing my attention.

“But I intended to walk!,” I think of saying that to him.  I find myself being polite instead, “Eh!, Ok.  Lets go!”

It hardly takes ten minutes on the motorbike to traverse the five kilometers.

“How much?”

“Brother!  You have brought skuku.  Just pay me anything!”

Now, how do you pay someone whom you have brought ‘skuku’ to?  The normal fare, which is already too inflated in my view, for the 5k distance, is one hundred shillings.  Now you see why I had wanted to just walk this short forty-five-minute walk?  As I see the greenery and admire the good scenery?

I end up paying two hundred shillings.

I am seated under the mango tree, my favourite spot in the homestead, savouring the refreshing air on the very tranquil environment.  The place is so green, that this is the only colour that you see all the way to the horizon.  Civilization has hardly hit.  No tall structures.  No big houses.  No big roads.  No vehicular traffic – just an occasional disturbance of the stillness by the sound of a motorbike, which is still few and far between.

“My dad has come!,” I hear an exclamation coming from the direction of the main gate to the compound.  The homestead is generally on the upper part of a hilly terrain.  I am able to observe, and be observed, by anyone coming from the lower side of the compound, while seated at the shade of the mango tree.

The person gets to the mango tree.  We exchange greetings.  He pulls a seat and we are soon in conversation.  I know him from childhood.  He is a distant relation.  Our association must be in the great-great-great grandfather level.

“Now dad, I have to leave,” he finally declares after ten minutes or so.

“That soon?.  Ok, I am just around.  See you soon.”

“Yes, but, dad, I need skuku.  You just know how home is.  I am happy that you have brought skuku.”

I part with a red.

“You mean my brother is here!”

We are both interrupted by this call that comes from behind the main house, in a compound that has nine houses.  Someone has accessed the compound from the fence behind the main house that faces directly towards the main gate.  He has just managed to see what has just happened.

“My brother!,” he shouts animatedly upon his approach.  

I am still seated, while ‘my son’ is standing, bank note in hand ready to depart.

“Oh, brother!  You cannot leave me without skuku!  Thank God you came.  Just ka fegi tu is all I need.”

I end up with another one hundred gone, as the two leave me and walk together down towards the gate.  They are on top of the world.  Father and son walk off.  My brother and his son walk off.  They are of course not related in the nuclear setting – maybe six generations is what you need to dig through before you can connect.

I have soon had enough rest and decide to check out the neighbourhood.  I do not walk more than five minutes before I meet a random person on the road.

“Fadhe you know me!?  Karibu nyumbani!  Eh, fadhe, good to see you at shags.”

I am still processing this stranger.  I cannot place him.

“Of course, my nephew!,” I extend a hand.  I have no recollection.  I cannot force memory.

We stop in the middle of the deserted footpath.

“Fadhe, uwezi niacha hivo.  Ka skuku hivi.  Ka mozo tu!”

I part with one hundred as we say our goodbyes.

I am back home one hour later.  I ask the young ones to get me some sugarcane.  This is the fun part of being in the hood – the natural delicacies.  The young ones have not even had a chance to start their walk towards the gate, when they are stopped on their tracks.

“Uncle, did you say you want sugarcane?  Why did you not just say so?”

I am taken aback.  I see the new person who has just emerged from the next compound having crossed over the fence.

We exchange greetings.  He soon arranges for some two sticks of sugarcane that are delivered in record time, just from the next compound.

“Uncle,” he starts, as I break a piece from the long stave with my knee and start on my chewing, “Aki Uncle, thank God you came.  Sasa skuku ni aje!”

I appreciate the sugarcane and his efforts with two hundred shillings.

I sleep exhausted.

I am woken up at four when the exposed roof iron sheets start being hit by the rains.  It starts with single drumming that are far between, then intensifies as the drops hit the iron.  It is a complete drumming from the roof in less than five minutes.  The drumming gets louder as the rain intensifies.  Soon it is so loud from the roof that there is nothing to do but get back to sleep through the noise.  The noise is soon in the background of the sleep and I enjoy the last moments of sleep and wake up when the rain subsides at eight on this Saturday morning.

I get out of the house to find my uncle waiting.  I do not expect him to be seeing me, if anything, I should be visiting him.

“My nephew!”

“Oh! Uncle!,” I say while rubbing the morning sleep from the rainy night.

“I just had to see you when I was told you are around.  I have not seen you for a year!”

“Not intentional, just many things have been happening.”

“Have you really been in Kenya this year?”

How did he know?

“I have,” I economize the truth, and change the subject.

It is not long before he begs to leave.  I offer to escort him.  His place is less than three kilometres away.  We keep chatting.  He soon offers nuggets of reality.

“You still remember that I am your uncle, right?”

“Right, of course,” I respond in truth.  I used to pass by my grandmother’s place almost daily during my primary school days, many years ago.  Her homestead was located on my way from school.  That woman loved me to the core.  She had lost her daughter when I was still eight.  She told me that I was the closest thing to her daughter and that she wanted to keep her memory.  Fond memories passed through, but I was back to the moment.

“If my sister had killed my mother at childbirth, then I could not have been born.  You know that, right?”

“I know,” I respond as we keep walking.

“And you know that you remind me my sister, who left you while you were still young, right?”

“Sure uncle,” I say as we keep walking.

What is this turning into?  Twenty-one questions?

“So never forget me, even at this skuku time!”

I find myself handing over a wad of notes.

Being a Saturday, there is nothing much to do as most of the folks are gone to church and normalcy would return past one when church ends.  I seat in my house listening to the iron-sheets make that clang sound as they expanded slowly with the burning sun.  The clang would go on for over an hour as the iron adjusts to its new size.  The sound is just magical.  This clang would be repeated in the evening when the sun goes down and the sheets have to contract back to their restful size.

I was observing the big gaping hole on the wall of one of the inner rooms.  This hole was caused by those damn termites.  The same nitwits whose mound I had just cleared the previous evening and had by now, one day later, created a similar big mound just overnight!  

It is not long before my neighbor from next compound joins me in the house to discuss this particular termite predicament.

“Imagine the termites have rebuilt!  Hata kama ndio bidii kama ya mchwa!,” I show him the fresh mound that is covering almost half of the hole on the wall.  This hole was created by the same wretched termites in the first place.  The very termites that ate through that very wall, with successive attempts to remove them resulting into the wall being cut through.

“Ah, hizo!  Usijali, we already killed the queen.  These are just the remnant soldiers trying to re-establish a colony, but they are useless,” he examines the insects at work, then continues, “Kesho nitamwaga dawa ukitoka.  The dawa is so pungent.  You cannot stay around when I pour in the mixture.”

“You killed the queen?”

“Of course!  We found the source to be somewhere in the farm and dug it out,” he pointed to the adjacent farmland, just past the house, “It sure was the queen.  Even Ken, your nephew, actually fried it and ate it!”

We would chat about this and that and he would finally take his leave.

“For that additional dawa, you shall part with some one-thao.  That should do it.  Alafu siunajua tu ni skuku!”

On Sunday I was at Dudi stage, hardly with any fare to get me back to Nairobi.  I would have to call someone to ‘beg’ for fare back!  I had just participated in one of the most expensive runs in the year!

WWB, the Coach, 30-Dec-2019

Two marathons, the full ones…. in two weeks

Two marathons, the full ones…. in two weeks

Episode 1 - First half of first marathon

It was a bad idea from the beginning.  Two marathons, the full marathons, in two weeks.  This was in keeping with the tradition of the unlimitedness of the human spirit – an ‘Ineos159’ thing.  The main run was supposed to be the ‘ultimate’ international marathon – the one that closes the year – scheduled for Friday, Dec. 20.  There was nothing supposed to be held before this year closing event.  

But things do happen.  I had seen many other marathons still being advertised on our marathoners groups WhatsApp.

“Is this a scheme to sabotage the ‘ultimate’?,” I found myself asking as I saw marathon after another being promoted.  There was no talk of the ultimate.  If anything, my single announcement did not elicit any response.  I was already reminding myself of the November international, codename ‘route eleven’, where only my own two legs turned up.

It is the usual convention to scout the route before a run.  I had already scouted it for ‘route eleven’ hardly a month prior.  Surely, nothing could have changed in that time, could there be?  There was only one way to find out.  The finding out took place on Monday, Dec. 9.  I left for the evening run in a relaxed ‘scouting’ mood – no pressure.  This was just the usual 21k on the usual international route, with the usual 10km hill.  Nothing new.

That feeling would soon be short lived just as I crossed the main Nakuru highway at Kabete Police, bottle of water in hand, two cells at hand to time the run with two different apps.  I started feeling pain in my stomach.  That was strange.  That was new.  

I had been on a usual watchful diet.  My last heavy meal had been the late breakfast at ten – just a cup of black tea and a piece of sweet potato.  I had thereafter taken two more cups of tea and about a half litre of water in the timespan between ten and four.  I took the last sip of warm water just past four, ready for the run that started at 4.45pm.  The stomach pain hardly fifteen minutes from start of the run was a strange one.

I was in a run-stopping pain by the time I started the Vet loop part of the run on the second kilometer.  I encouraged myself to continue monitoring the situation.

“Push it to Ndumbo river on the 4k,” I told myself.

“Gauge it there and be ready to turn back,” I continued the self-talk.

The rains earlier in the day had made the path muddy, before I could get to the tarmac road at Ndumbo.  The weather was a bit cold.  It was drizzling as I ran down towards Ndumbo river – the point of decision on whether I would continue the run or not.

It would not be long before the decision would be clear – the run was on.  My stomach pain had subsided and I started up the hill with an energetic leap.  The drizzles also subsided and the weather would remain dull through the run.  The tummy pain would however resume just past Kanyariri school.  I still had that final two kilometers of hill towards Nakuru highway.

“Do I turn back?”

I kept going, albeit with slowed pace.

I somehow got to the highway with pain on my stomach.  It was now the turning point of the 21k and there was no going back on this run now.  I now just had to go round the big circle of Gitaru market and start my way back.

My mouth did not feel like taking a sip.  I could not even imagine taking in any water.  Just the thought of it almost got me throwing up.  I would be running ‘dry’ on this run.  I kept going with my full bottle of half-litre of water on this half-marathon.  The stomach pain would subside as I ran down towards Ndumbo river.  

I now had only three kilometres to the finish.  The effects of dehydration were evident.  I was finding it hard to pump in any more powerful kicks as I faced the final hill to Ndumbo market.  I was tired!  I longed for water, which I had at hand, but my mouth had refused to pertain any.  It took willpower to cross Waiyaki way and get to Kabete Poly for the last kilometer.  But having done twenty already, I had just to push through that last one – even if it was the last thing that I would do.

I stopped my timer at 1.46.01.  Runkeeper gave me 21.82km while Endomondo gave me 21.23km.  I had given myself 1.50.00.  I was glad to have been vindicated despite how I felt.  The run was a 5.00min/k pace.  

Episode 2 - Second half of first marathon

It was a Friday, four days after the painful Monday run.  I had already enjoyed a day of rest in the name of Jamhuri day holiday on Thursday.  I was ready to take myself back on the 21k route.  This run was more of a confirmation that my body was still working well.  Maybe the Monday experience was telling me something.  I was going to find out.  It had not rained since Thursday morning.  It was getting drier.  Some dark clouds around four threatened to culminate into a rainy evening.  It did not.  The evening was sunny – hot even.

I started my run at quarter to five, a bottle of water at hand.  The warm weather propelled my steps and I was soon crossing the Waiyaki way at Kabete hardly ten minutes after starting the run.  The run was just too smooth.  

There was nothing special on the route.  Just the usual no-other-runners, the usual vehicles hooting you out of the way despite the road being too big to accommodate the single vehicle and one runner.  The usual evening sun that can be hot when it means to – and it did mean to on this Friday.

I reached Gitaru market without much ado.  I had already taken a few sips of water.  I would go around the market partly on Wangige road and be back to Kanyariri road before long.  The spice of the route is the downhill run from Gitaru market back to Ndumbo river.  I found myself down acceleration lane as I covered this part without much effort.  I was just on top of the world on this run.  The sips of water helped keep me hydrated.

A vehicle flashes me with full headlights as we both converge on the same road bump going in opposite directions.

The driver waves.  I hardly notice him since our relative motions are increasing our separation with each passing second.  I wave back.  I am useless without my specs.  I am not sure which runner that is.  All I know is that he is a runner.

It is not long before it is the turn of a motorbike.  I am running without a care, when the motorbike approaches me and hoots.  I give it way before the passenger draws my attention.

“Dabliu Biiiii!,” an excited sound comes from the passenger of the motorbike, which has now slowed down towards a stop.  I am already five metres gone, heading towards ten metres gone.

I try to look back while maintaining a front motion.  I am not sure whether I should stop or not.

I recognize the passenger.

“Haki woiye!  Good work!  Dabliu Biiii!!  Haki wewe!!,” Lavender shouts back at my retreating form.

“Thanks!,” I shout back loudly.  I am now past ten metres and going.

I run the last four kilometres without noticing much around me.  I am just doing a run that shall soon come to an end.  And coming to an end it does.  This second half marathon of the first marathon ends with a time of 1.39.55!  This was a 4.42min/km pace. 

“That can’t be true!,” I shake my head as I get into the compound.  Shaving off seven-minutes from the half is just unimaginable!  Both the apps record this run as a 21.27km event.

Episode 3 - First half of second marathon

“My medal number 22 at Tigoni,” Janet declared on the WhatsApp page with photographic evidence.  It was a Saturday. 

“The last run in 2019,” she adds.  

I now know why she is not running in next Friday’s ‘ultimate’ international.  Will anyone turn up for this final run?  I ponder.

How about medals?  The ultimate run would have none.  

I had imagined that I was a diligent runner in the year, with 1,110km ran since June 1, but I only had five medals to show for it.  Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro full, Kenya’s Muituni half, Kenya’s Alliance twenty k, Norway’s Stavanger full and Netherlands’s Amsterdam full – But twenty-two medals!  How is that even possible?  Where have I been?  I started having self-doubt as to whether I was running a lost cause.

This third run in the second week was proving to be the hardest to arrange and execute.  It should have been on a Monday, but the SMS from the doc was categorical, “You have a 3.00pm appointment on Monday.  Do not miss.”

I liked the ‘Do not miss’ part.  It was as though I was due for some important award.

If this third run was not to be done on a Monday, and yet I had the ultimate on Friday, then when would this third run be ‘squeezed in’?  Tuesday seemed too late!

I was seated, more like reclined on the dental chair at exactly three.  I was able to look through the large window on this first-floor room to see the newly constructed Ngong road section just a stone throw away.  I could see matatus and motorbikes competing for space on the vast road, hooting each other loudly.  

It is not the poking of my teeth with that sharp thing that looked like a screw driver that cause my dread, it was the tick-tock towards the evening run that got me thinking.

‘The doc’, sorry ‘the dent’, would finally say, after three cycles of examining the x-ray then the poking, “This image does not look like what I see now.  You must have healed in the last one month.”

That was music to my ears.  The nursing assistant also seemed relieved.  I was expecting one of those prolonged ‘sit-ins’, sorry, ‘recline-ins’.  This would not happen today.  This was to be the shortest stay on that chair.

It was now just past 3.30pm.  I had to ‘somehow’ make it to the run in an hour.  The distance was not the issue, the means of travel was.  Matatus are so untimely and unpredictable once you are on board.  

How many times have you been forced out of the matatu before your destination with a simple, “Mwisho! Mwisho! Shukeni! Tumefika mwisho!  Gari inarudi!”

Just like that, without a care in the world – rain or no rain.  No refund and no refund!

That would probably be three to five kilometers from the expected destination!

How about the route being changed without notice!  You are heading towards your destination, which you can see right ahead, then the matatu diverts to a bumpy side road that takes them longer in the name of ‘avoiding traffic’.  Please do not get me started on matatus.  I just use them though we have a hate-hate relationship.

I ‘somehow’ got to my destination at 4.15pm.  This was in good time for the run.  This run would happen.  Let ‘us’ get this run done with… and that is what ‘we’ did.  You need to read a previous blog to know the origin of this pluralization.  To refresh your memory, I got it from the same dents, who keep using plural for their individual selves.

I started the run at the international starting line at exactly 4.45pm.  The weather was good, if anything it was hot.  A second hot run in four days.  It did not take long before I was feeling the heat, even as I crossed Waiyaki way after five minutes of run.  The run was the same usual run.  Through the route that is now etched into memory.  I can close my eyes and replicate that route any day, or night if the Addis experience of nightruns can help in this route.

There was nothing much to write about on this first half of the second marathon.  It went on as planned – a relaxed run without any pressure of any sorts whatsoever.  I eventually finished the run, stopping the now well-behaved gadgets at 21.20km in 1hr 42min 05sec (Endomondo) and 21.17km in 1hr 42min 09sec (Runkeeper).  A 4.49min/km pace.  

I say ‘well-behaved’ since I have the secret of eliciting this behavior on these gadgets.  Switch on the Airplane mode when you are using them.  That forces all background apps to freeze, leaving the gadgets with only one thing to do – track your run – and that is what you want, right?.

Episode 4 - Second half of second marathon – the ultimate

There was now only one run standing, sorry running, between me and a four-run streak – this was the ‘ultimate’ marathon planned for Friday, Dec. 20, 2019.  This was the run to close the year – the very last one – the ‘ultimate’.  

However, it did not seem to stand much chance of success.  If the November ‘penultimate’ was largely shunned, yet the runners had not even tasted the festivities yet!  How about this one that was occurring two-weeks after the employer had hosted the staff to a lavish end year bash?  This ultimate run was technically off, but unfortunately it was part of the 4-run streak and I would have to partake, even if it was the last thing that I was doing this year.

“Coach!  Long time!,” Edu shouted in my direction as I approached his trio.  They were like ten metres away.  It was lunch hour.  A Thursday.  One day to the final run of 2019.

“Oh!  Hi there yourselves!”

“Kupotea nayo!?” 

We had now met and were exchanging greetings.

“Niko!  Hata kesho kuna mbio – the last one!  The ultimate!!”

“Ah, you mean?,” he started.  

I already knew his next sentence, but still waited for him to say it, “Sisi tulishafunga mbio mpaka next year!”

Now, this ultimate thing is not going to happen.  If the likes of Edu, had called it ‘a year’ already?  The real veterans in my group!?  Then who else would dare make it to the ‘ultimate’?

I was packing up for the evening, ready to face the inevitable solo ‘ultimate’.  I was already resigned to that inevitable fate.

“Bad things happen,” I thought loudly.  

I was just about to walk home, when a friend requested for some two reds to sort out something.  I was doing the lending by mobile money, one hundred at a time.  The first hundred went through successfully.  I could even here the beep beep from the phone that was just placed on the seat.  I would momentarily hear another beep beep.  

I then transferred the second red and heard those double beeps.  It was not long before the owner of the phone came back to the office and possessed the phone.

“Have you sent me the money?”

“Yes, of course I did!”

“Mbona sioni?”

“I have just sent.  Check your phone!,” I responded with conviction.

“Sioni kitu, are you sure?”

“Yes, si numba yako ni seven eight seven?”

“Ai, wewe!  Sasa mbona ulituma kwa hiyo namba?”

I was taken aback.  I had to process.

“What do you mean, ‘mbona’?  Isn’t that your number?”

“Yes, lakini hiyo ina fuliza.  Imagine that money was ‘chewed’ immediately.”

I had to loan another two additional reds to the right number.  This is just crazy!

It took me the whole length of the 1.2km walking home to get to know what this fuliza thing that ‘chews‘ money was all about.  Even as I reached home and prepared my running shoes ready for the ultimate.  I believed that one more night rest was all that was needed to crack this run.  Only time (and weather) would tell, whether the ultimate succeeds or not.

And…. time and weather did tell when it was finally a Friday and it was 4.45pm – time for the run.  The weather was good.  The evening sun was bright, warm and quite inviting as I flagged myself off at the generator.  I was the only one at the starting line.  That was expected.  I was feeling quite on top of the world as I started the run.  However, the Friday run would soon become similar, in fact congruent to the Monday run!  

My stomach pain started hardly five minutes after I started the run, as I crossed Waiyaki way at Kabete Technical’s N-junction.

“This is not happening, again,” I told myself even as I crossed the highway.

My speed had started reducing by the time I was at Ndumbo having just done about fifteen minutes of run.  By then my stomach was so painful that every step that I took seemed to increase the pain.

“I shall not make it this time round,” I shook my head as I went down from Ndumbo towards the river.

I do not even remember how I got the energy to carry me from the river for the 1km run to the elevated tank.  It was the most painful uphill run.

“I give up!,” I said when I reached the tank, and if anything made up my mind to cancel the run by diverting to the right ready to just do the Mary Leakey route and get back.  I would have to make do with a 13k instead of 21k.

I was running slowly through the university farm when the pain in the stomach subsided and was soon gone.  I had hardly gone a kilometer through this dusty footpath.

“Now what?,” I said while turning back, deciding to abandon the Mary Leakey alternative and going back to the original run. 

Maybe the pain was just a temporary thing.  I may as well just do the intended full run.  After all, maji ukiyavulia nguo lazima uyaoge (when you strip you just have to take a bath).  I was already stripped for this bathing.  I just had to do it.  I turned back and was soon back to Kanyariri road at the elevated tank.  I turned to my right and continued with Kanyariri road, to do the initially intended run. 

The eye of the stomach however must have seen that I was back to Kanyariri road, since it was hardly five minutes after rejoining Kanyariri that the stomach pain resumed.

“I have no choice, I shall have to do this run…. Painfully.”

I had now just covered about 6km.  

I still had another 15km – Wowi!  Fifteen more?  

I had not even done half!!

So I did the run, one painful step at a time.  Fifteen thousand more such steps!

As I said, the run was similar, sorry congruent to the Monday run.  Same feeling, same pain and no appetite for water.  I finished the run when I was as dehydrated as a stone in summer, yet I still had my full bottle of water at hand.  

This stomach thing was now a serious thing.  It did not seem to be related to diet.  I must have been bit by some form of bug that now needed medical intervention.  

I stopped my gadgets in 1hr 54min 56min for a distance of 22.86km - A 5.05min/km pace.  The worst pace in the four run streak.  The final lessons from the coach after 2 full marathons in 2 weeks – forget legs.  You need a good stomach for your runs.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2020.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Dec. 20, 2019

Running at night – part 3

Running at night – part 3

Read part 2 here

“This is messed up!,” I almost shouted at the lady at the check-in counter at Bole.

She had just delivered the shattering blow to my otherwise well-planned day.  One minute prior to this particular feeling, she had asked, “What’s your flight?”

“KQ to Nairobi”

“The flight be delay to nan-tati”

This meant an extra two-unplanned-hours at the airport… doing nothing!  What I hated was not the ‘at the airport’ part.  What got me was the ‘doing nothing’ part.  And let no one cheat you – airports are the most boring of places that you ever want to spend your time.

“This is messed up!,” I finally said to myself after the very fast processing through immigration.  There was zero person on any queue.  Nobody nowhere.  It was deserted.  I then proceeded to seat at the first floor lounge, to wait for my five hours of doing nothing.

It would however become worse.  As I sat to start my five hours of nothingness, I noted that the ‘free’ wifi was showing that dreaded ‘no internet’ message.  It took a few tweaks to force it to open a browser page for me to accept their terms and condition before I could finally connect.  I just clicked the checkbox next to, “Please tick box to confirm you read and agree with our Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy” and then clicked ‘Connect’.

Talking of these T&C, who reads them?  That is exactly why they are there – not to be read.  And that is by design.  In that long, small font text of the T&Cs are those illegal forced consent to the collection, processing and use of personal information and browsing history.  But who cares – the cyberworld is already messed up as it is.  An additional continuation of what they do best (take our info and use it for whatever they do) won’t make a difference, will it?.  I however have free advice if you want to make a difference – stop using anything that connects to any network.  Don’t we all just love free advice!

I reflected on my last few hours and it was quite a day.  I remembered reading and re-reading those boring hotel rules on the folder placed on the table of the hotel room.  My boredom was temporary turned to some interest when I saw the special consideration for weekends.  It was clear than on weekends breakfast was served from 7.00am to 11.00am.  That was quite something.  I had to re-read that part and internalize.  

That would mean that even if I woke up at eleven-ish, I could still make it for breakfast.  I had had a busy week in Addis and just wanted to have a one-long night rest that should culminate into a late waking up at eleven-ish.  Thank you hotel management for knowing that weekends are special.  I gave them a ‘like’ with a thumbs up.  I wish there was a feedback form.  Maybe it was there, in the maze of many papers in that folder.

But the Saturday morning started with a mind of its own.  My intended wake-up-late morning did not happen.  I lost my sleep at eight and flipped through the boring TV programmes.  The signal reception was poor – those grainy analogue signals.  The choice of programmes was equally limited – just ten channels.  Six grainy, two news channels, a movie channel and some other channel that was difficult-to-understand-what-it-was-all-about.  It is the only channel where you could be watching an edge-of-the-seat movie at one moment, only to be interrupted by a long display of channel listing.  Before long, you could see the cursor moving live on screen, in a manner of flipping through the channels, only for the channel to be changed to something else – like cartoons – just like that!

I therefore decided to keep flipping through the bouquet of ten, looking for nothing in particular, until I stumbled upon the channel with the soap opera for men.  I was starting to sympathize with myself over how I have been cheated for so long over what goes on in our view.  I infact was now knowledgeable of all the ‘lies’ that I now could spot them live on screen.  I recognized that trash talk as fake.  I knew that those apparent ‘painful’ kicks and high falls were made to ‘sound’ painful than the real pain.  I was now even enjoying the moments, with truth on my side, when the screen just went off!  The room become dark and life came to a standstill.  It was hardly nine and we were having a power fail.  

I was confident that this would be short lived, after all no hotel can be worth its star-rating if it did not have a power-backup right? Wrong!  It would take almost an hour before the power was back.  I struggled to get something to do in the sixty-minutes, but nothing could keep me contained.  I tried sleeping, I could not.  I tried pacing, I got tired after a look through the window of the second-floor balcony.  I tried doing something on the phone but the wifi was off.  I tried packing – that seemed to work, but I was through pushing stuff in my one hand luggage in the shortest of time.  It was now just over five minutes since the power fail and I had exhausted my arsenal of ‘doing nothing’.

The men’s soap resumed with the power around ten.  By then I had bathed, thanks to the centralized heating instead of an instant heating which would have meant no hot water.  I had read and re-read that notice in the washroom….

“Think of the tonnes of towels being laundered unnecessarily in hotels throughout the world. And of the huge quantities of detergent polluting our water.  Please decide for yourself…”

Below this heading were four options.  The first one was that if you put a towel on the floor then it shall go for laundry, any other placement meant that it shall not be touched.  The third bullet point was that a green card placed on the bed meant no change of linen, a red card gives those linen a red to the laundry.  It was my last day here.  I was meant to check out.  I was to ‘decide for myself’.  What to do?

But this was not my first room.  I had ‘nomaded’ over three places during my one-week stay.  I started at the employer’s operated hostels.  Those were just in a different world.  I big room in a secure premise.  A kitchenette with fridge, albeit empty, an electric kettle, a bowl of sugar and eight sachets of tea bags.  Two bottles of water topped it all up.  These consumables were on daily replenishment.  The screen had a dedicated decoder for one to flip through and watch anything in full HD on an equally gigantic screen.  

I only stayed there two nights.  I was then moved to this hotel, but to a fourth-floor room.  The room was ‘OK’, until I took a bath and the bathwater overflowed out of the shower cubicle due to blocked drainage.  This wastewater would soon flood most of the bathroom cubicle and start flowing towards the living room.  I had to arrest the situation with a towel.  The towel remained soaked through the night.  My visits to the washroom in the night brought a sobering moment every time I stepped on that wet cold towel.

On the next day, Thursday morning, I had asked for a repair of the blockage.  I came back in the evening to get an offer for a change of room instead.  My interpretation was that they must have known that the situation in 408 was incorrigible.  The second-floor room 204 was better.  The TV was newish and bigger.  The bathroom had a tub, unlike the previous room.  The room felt hot when I first stepped in.  However, an air-conditioning unit was standing on top of the archway to the main room, just past the entrance, and past the washrooms.  The TV programmes of course turned out to be a big let down and more was to come.  

After opening the water tap and waiting for three-to-four minutes for the shower water to finally be warm enough, I stood in the tub and started to absorb the volume of water from the giant square showerhead on the ceiling.  It could have been a good shower had it not been for the water that started soaking my feet in the tub.

“What is going on here?”

The bathtub also had a blocked drainage and the wastewater was starting to fill up with every flow of the shower waters.  Not wishing to continue standing in the waste water, I had to cut short my otherwise enjoyable shower.

Nonetheless, I managed to stay two nights on the second floor and made do with the room condition.  After all, what do you need in a sleeping room?  Just a bed – and it had one.  Everything else was a bonus to use or not.

I had survived my two nights and it was now time to check out.  I had already experienced that one-hour blackout.  I had already been subjected to ‘’decide for yourself’ moments… twice!  I had already watched the men’s soap.  If anything, I was just enjoying the last moment of the ‘big lie’ on screen.  I still went along.  It would be rude to burst anybody’s bubble, even if they are on screen.  Just play along… or at least pretend.  When the soap ended with a predictable result, with commentators screaming “What a surprise!”, and the ref knocked out ‘unconscious’ for one minute only to come to after a minute, to do a 1-2-3 count, then you can imagine why I had to play along.

It was now just 10.30am.  I wanted to stretch this breakfast thing to its very limit.  A heavy breakfast around eleven would brunch me for the day so that I just await my evening travel back home.  But I had nothing else to do at this moment, and so I walked downstairs for breakfast at ten-thirty.  You can imagine my surprise when I got to the breakfast diner only to find the attendants clearing the last bits of serving plates from the buffet serving area.

“Where is breakfast?,” I asked, assuming that maybe the venue had been changed.

“We close breakfast!”

“But why?  It is not yet eleven.”

“Today not eleven.  Eleven be weekend only.”

“But it is Saturday!?”

“No, eleven be weekend only.  Tomorrow it be eleven.”

“But the information in the hotel room clearly indicates that you serve breakfast until eleven on weekends!  Today is a weekend, right?”

“That be no true.  Eleven be weekend only.  Only tomorrow”

The lady then just left me standing and joined her crew in clearing.  She did not seem bothered that one of their paying customers was about to miss breakfast.  She did not want to bother about thinking of an alternative.  She was just about to retreat to the kitchen when someone seated at the diner, to my left, next to our exchange intervened.

“Serve him,” he told the lady who was retreating to the kitchen.  He added some other utterances in Amharic, then continued his own breakfast with a colleague.

He looked at me, still affixed, “Just take a seat there.  They serve you.”

I sat and waited.  However, it was not long before I got an ‘anything goes’ conglomerate described as breakfast, served by the same person, egg on her face!  I did not care.  It had all ingredients that can make up for a missed breakfast.  I only missed the injera, the meats, the sausages, the flakes, the rice, the fruits – Eish – I did not know that I missed a lot!  But toast, egg and tea is just OK.  However, if you promise breakfast until eleven, then please deliver breakfast until eleven.  If Saturday is a weekend, then let Saturday be a weekend.  

Before I could put this matter to rest, I actually had to go back to my room and re-read those hotel rules, specifically the issue of when breakfast shall be served.  As sure as the sun rises from the East, it was still there, in black and white…

“Breakfast time

From Monday to Friday from 6:A.m to 10.00A.m

Saturday and Sunday from 7:A.m To11:00Am

Room check out time @ 12:00pm”

I am even surprised that the concept of ‘weekend’ that we were arguing about so passionately was not even mentioned at all in that notice!

Lost

Back to the moment, I identified a secluded spot at Bole and took a seat.  The ‘secluded’ place was more by design than by choice.  I needed a power socket and one of those pillars turned out to be the ideal place to seat and get connected to the juice.  I decided to MYOB and covered my ears with the giant muffs of the headphone.  

I was seated just next to the clear glass window facing the airport tarmac below.  I could see the runway about half a kilometer in front of my view, with planes touching down and taking off.  I had nothing to do but massacre the four hours of waiting.  It was hardly six, despite imagining that I must have been waiting for hours.  I had just finished an hour of waiting, with another three to go.

Despite my muffed ears, I was quite alert to all the going ons near gate A7 where I was seated alone, twenty of so other seats were empty on this section.  As I said, by design.  I then noted this guy who came and sat two seats from where I had sat.  He seemed a bit restless, as I gauged him from the corner of my left eye.  My specs were fixed straight to my laptop.  My head did not move an inch, but my eye took in his every restless move on that seat to my left.  I kept gazing on the screen.  

He kept being jumpy.  He stood up.  Walked around.  Came back.  Sat down.  Stood up again.  Held the rail of the structure holding the large windows in front of our sitting place.  He sat down again.  He momentarily left, only to come back and take the same seat once more.  I guessed that it must have been the fatigue of a flight or the apprehension of the next or just the stress of travel.  Traveling ain’t easy.  

I kept pounding on the keyboard.  My left eye doings its corner thing.  Absorbing every moment.  I later got used to his restlessness and continued with MYOBing.

“Excuse me!”

It did not come as a surprise.  I acted surprised.  I looked up.

“Yes!”

“It is Sunday right?”

What is it with today and Sunday?  First the hotel and now this?

“No. It is Saturday.”

“You sure?, which date?”

“December seven.  Saturday.”

I started doubting whether it was a Saturday myself.  Maybe it has been a Sunday all along!  I started having that panic attack.  Could it be true?

“See,” I clicked the lower right part of the laptop screen, where the clock was displaying 6:30 PM.  Momentarily, the popup showed up as “Saturday, December 7, 2019.”

“So, tomorrow is Sunday…,” he said almost in deep thought.  He then went ahead to count loudly, “Then Monday nine, Tuesday ten and Wednesday eleven, so I get there twelve.”

I had stopped typing.  He was just standing and gazing over the vast tarmac ahead.  He went back to his seat, two seats away.

I had hardly resumed my typing before he was back, “Can I borrow your laptop?  I need to send email, urgent.”

I started weighing my options.  A few what-ifs ran through my mind.  I started disconnecting the USB cables ready to hand over the machine.  I was just about to unplug the power and give him the laptop when he continued, “I lost my phone today, and I must send an urgent message to my people in India, before I fly at eight.”

I hurried the process of handing over the laptop.  He resumed his seat, two seats from where I was seated.  He pounded on the keyboard.  It did not take long before he asked me to get him a clean Gmail logging webpage to enable him access his email.  I walked to his sitting position, logged out my accounts and handed back the machine.  

He started his work.  He worked in full concentration.  I was taking a break, just pretending to listen to something on the muffs, which were now off.  It did not take more than ten minutes before he handed back the laptop.

“Thanks.  Imagine losing a phone!  It had my everything!”

“Bad things happen,” I found myself saying, for lack of a better consolation.

Mmmhhh, so that was the issue!  That was bad!

“What do you think can happen?”

“It is likely that the phone shall be erased and sold,” I told him.

“That would be good.  That phone had everything!”

“It is unlikely that something shall use it for ulterior motive like ransom or identity theft,” I reassured his dejected physique.

“I hope so.  I had put a lock.  I sure hope so.  The phone had everything!”

I had never known that a phone can be so dear.  When I lost my Infinix in August, my only thought was the resale value for the big 128GB SD card.  Now I was getting a whole new perspective about phones.  This particular episode got me thinking about phones.

My thoughts must have been for long, since I now realized that I still had two and a half more hours before I left.  Reducing the waiting time from three hour to two point five hours was a small reduction in waiting time… but a reduction in time nonetheless.

It was now almost eight-thirty.  Instead of preparing to land at Nairobi at this particular time, I was now just about to board, in one hour, then start my night run to NBO.  Just another day when I have to face another night run.  The runs that I am now so much accustomed to.  

But no one would have prepared me for ‘the flight is further delayed’ message that showed up on the screen at Gate C2 from 2100hrs when we should have been boarding.  The delay persisted even at 2145hrs when we should have been taking off!  This run in the night would be longer than I imagined!

WWB, the Coach, Addis Ababa, Dec. 7, 2019