Kili 2020 – even the corona could not stop this run
This was a Kili with a difference. I was as ready as I ever could, with two international marathons in the bag, while I was having a second attempt on the same route. I was surely as ready as I could. However, two team members of the ‘usual’ Kili would be out of the run. Fay was in bereavement, following the death of her father a week prior, while Edu was away on mission during the weekend of the run.
We had already booked our accommodation, thanks to Charles, our TZ counterpart who had offered to help us out. His own participation and availability would soon fade, when he also pulled out of the run to attend to a family emergency. We were on our own – though he had done all that he could to get us the accommodations and provided alternative contact persons. JV handled the local logistics and ensured that we had our tickets costing KShs.3,400 return more than one week in advance.
That is why we were now seated in the Impala Shuttle by 7.45am on this Saturday morning, the last day in February. The 22-seater shuttle left the Jeevanjee Gardens stage at exactly 8.00am for their Silver Springs hotel stopover to pick some other passengers. From there we picked some two other passengers on Mombasa road, before joining the Isinya-Namanga road
There was some vocabulary to learn as we picked the last person on Mombasa road, who turned out not to have a ‘real’ seat.
“Where will I sit,” he asked the driver, as he got in and scanned the bus for any empty seat. There was none
“Bana wewe, sisi kesha ongea na afisi. Wewe kesha kaa tu kwenye jumpu siti.”
He was hesitant, mostly from not understanding what had just been said. I was with him on this. Either for a lack of an alternative, of whether he surely understood what was expected of him, he did settle on the second to last row in the bus and unfolded the corridor seat. That is where he sat. Making a row of four people on that particular place. He must have done the right thing, since the driver checked his hind mirror, nodded his acknowledgment and engaged the bus into forward motion.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. I enjoyed a nap through the three hour journey to Namanga. We alighted for immigration processing, where we started by washing our hands before getting into the ‘one stop’ border crossing building. Someone would soon whisper that the hand-washing thing was a ‘corona thing’. In the absence of any other explanation or notification, we stuck to that whisper as the truth.
I did wonder last year and I was wondering a second time as to why this one-stop crossing, which was supposed to be efficient and seamless, took so long to get through! We started with a queue for an exit stamp at the Kenyan side – and that queue was long – like an hour-long. We then did queue once more on the next window, being the TZ entry processing.
There I was processed by a toothpick chewing immigration officer, who felt nothing. And I have observed that they like being distracted by other things going on behind their backs. They would be serving you in a moment, then just leave the process in the middle and start cracking some joke with a stranger who would have appeared on their back. They would then resume attending to you, by probably restarting the process.
I left the immigration queue at 12.30pm and moved to the next door, where I had exchanged KES to TSHS last year. I intended to do the same this year. The bank outlet was open but ‘temporarily closed’, as we observed the one cashier out of the two available counters proceed to count lots of currency, at his own pace – without giving the three of us on the waiting bench any notice.
Finally, a fourth person would join us on the waiting queue and would momentarily approach the counter. He seemed to be an acquaintance of the cashier.
“Kaka braza, utaweza nibadirishia hera?”
(*I would like to exchange some money)
The cashier momentarily stopped gazing at this computer screen. I had noted that he would gaze on that screen with full concentration for over a minute, as if there was a strange phenomenon going on that plasma. He is not alone. I see lots of users, notoriously banks, abuse the screen by gazing at it as if there is an interesting movie going on – maybe they have been watching movies all along, come to think of it!
He looked up from the monitor, “Jambo kaka, wataka badirisha hera ngapi?”
(*How much?)
“Kaka naomba nibadirishe dora hizi,” he exposed some dollars. About five new notes, from my observation.
“Basi naomba ungoje kidogo, dakika kumi hivi kaka.”
(*Wait some ten minutes)
The person who was to exchange the dollars did not seem to have the ten-minute patience. What was wrong with him? We people had been waiting without a word from the cashier for almost 30-minutes and were not even complaining. The ten extra minutes would be over and he would finish whatever he was doing and beckon me to approach.
“I would like to exchange Kenya Shillings to Tanzania shillings,” I told the NMB bank staffer.
He looked at me briefly, and without a care in the world said a casual, “Hatuna pesa za Tanzania, zimeisha.”
(*We are short of Tanzania shillings)
Can you believe this guy?
I have been waiting for a whole forty-minutes! How can a TZ bank lack TZ money! Isn’t that a contradiction?
“Wasted time,” I murmured as I walked out towards the external of the building to where our ‘flight’ was parked. There is where I was advised to just visit a road side currency exchange point and get sorted. That is what I did, just matched across the fence of the immigration compound and got a ‘wakala’ kiosk. They did not even want to see a form of ID. They just picked the KES, did a quick times 22 on their calculator and would soon be handed over a bundle of notes worth 88,000.00. I have never handled such a large sum of money!
Our bus left the border post at 1.40pm for the trip to Moshi. There were fewer vehicles on the TZ side. At some point we would hit that standstill called ‘50’ speed limit. The bus slams the brakes and starts moving at snail pace. And soon enough we got to a police check, with the cops seated on the right side of the road, just looking at the traffic as it moves. We maintained this standstill speed for another ten minutes, before the driver accelerated back to normal.
I was just about to resume my nap when we come to a standstill. We had been spoken at a police check. The two cops in uniform spoke to the driver. The one in plain clothes came towards the passenger door. The driver, who operated the doors from his position, momentarily opened the passenger door.
The cop man, radio in hand, stepped into the bus, “Mikanda mmefunga?”
(*Have you put on your seat belts)
The mostly Kenyan passengers kept their quiet. They probably did not even understand the question.
“Ndio mkubwa,” the driver looked back and responded.
The cop gave the bus and its passengers a casual look, then stepped out.
“Ahsante mkubwa,” the driver told him once he was back out and standing outside the driver’s door.
We left. I saw through a road sign that Arusha was still 77km away. I took my nap. It would take us another 90-minutes to cover this distance.
I woke up with a start to see that ‘Simeon road, Uzunguni’ junction. I knew this junction. Once we get through the traffic lights and turn to the right, then we shall be going to Impala hotel just two hundred metres down the road. I became fully awake. It was soon time to take a short break – fifteen minutes, they called it. Thirty minutes it became.
We left Impala just in time to give way to something like a brass band. I could see band members, seated behind a pickup truck, playing drums, trumpets, cymbals and trombones. They are loud as they passed by our bus on the main road. Our bus let them through before following them slowly. The procession then had a second car, a pickup with camera people. Soon it was clear from the third and fourth vehicles, decorated with garlands and decorative linen, as to what was going on exactly. The only ‘new’ ingredient to a ‘usual’ fest was that brass band.
Our bus would follow the procession to the main Arusha – Moshi road, then we would turn to the right, while the procession turned left. We were then faced with the 80km journey between the two towns. While Mount Meru stood 4565m tall within Arusha, we are heading for the real behemoth in Moshi at 5895m.
We reached Moshi at six, taking two hours on the 80k stretch. We then started dropping off the various passengers at their hotels. I soon realized that most of the passengers in the bus were having one agenda – the Kili run. We would be dropped at MUCOBS at around seven, having dropped others at Mississippi and Zebra. MUCOBS is a residential establishment managed and located at the Moshi Cooperative University. This was our residence and coincidentally, it was in the same compound where the starting point of the run was located at the University stadium.
In suits
We checked into our ‘suites’. Our rooms had already been pre-booked and prepaid, thanks to Charles, our TZ contact. I would however like to forget the MPESA experience when sending the cash across to TZ. I had calculated that I would just send KShs.1,700, exchanging at 23, to take care of the TShs.38,500 bill over there. That was not to be. The cross-border transfer exchange rate would turn up to be 21.75. However, that still got me the prepay for night-1, even as I made alternative arrangements to pay the balance for this deficit.
I got suite 4, and the key was appropriately labelled as ‘su-4’. The suite was a detached building of 4 self-contained rooms and an additional shared kitchen as a room in between the block. We had to walk about one-hundred metres from the main block to get to the suites. The accommodation was quite cost effective for that charge. I had nothing to complain about, bearing in mind that this was a bed-and-breakfast arrangement. My suite turned out to be a full house. It had a living room with a reading table with chair and two lounging chairs. It even had a small fridge and a 14-inch flat screen TV.
The bedroom had a big 6x6 bed, though a shabbily fixed mosquito net hanged above it. There was a cabinet on one of the walls, and a washroom on the left side of the room as you get in. However, the suite was in dire need of maintenance. It was livable, but it could have been better.
While I was able to get the bedroom light switch, I could not find a way of switching on the living room lights. The two switched next to the door did not seem to work. One was definitely controlling the external security light, while the other one did not seem to do anything. I had to call the caretaker to assist me switch on the light. I was surprised to see him walking straight into the dark room, upto the opposite wall and grope around the wall next to the window to finally find a switch and flick it on.
“Why would you place a switch that far?,” I thought out loudly.
After he had left, I switched on the boiler and started waiting for the water to get hot. I had already been to the washroom and noted that the bathtub was a bit dirty, as if it had not been used for some time. The shower head was missing from the flex, as if something had cut it off. I was now imagining how a shower from the broken pipe would be like. There was no soap, no tissue and no towel, though the caretaker would come back momentarily and bring me a towel and a tiny soap.
The TV was working by virtue that it could be switched on – and that was all. The remote was not working and hence it was not possible to flip through the channels. The manual buttons did not seem to work. I switched it off. There was a socket inside the wardrobe. I was still wondering why a socket would be positioned there, even as I plugged my laptop on that particular socket.
I observed the big safari ants in their twenties zig zag the bedroom floor. I noted them in the sitting room too. They were harmless enough. We could coexist. A black cricket stayed put on the door frame of the washroom. I ignored it, even as a lizard ran through the same frame and settled somewhere above the frame. I ignored both. The suite was too big for all of us. The paintwork on the bathroom wall was completely flaked, I guess from the effect of water splash on the wall. It was just an eye sore, but the taps were functional, so nothing to worry.
I was just about strip and try out the bath in case the water had got hot by this time, when there was a knock on the door. I cursed as I went to the door.
“Kaka naomba nikutoe kwenye suti hii, uende suti nyingine,” the caretaker pushed himself through me and into the sitting room.
(*You need to move out)
“But, lakini…. Why?”
“Kaka unajua hii mambo ya ku-buki rumu. Mara huyu amebuku, mara yure amebuku. Ina rete utata, rakini tutakupatia suti nyingine. Suti yako ni nambari mbiri.”
(*Due to changes, your room is now number two)
It took me a few moments to process what was going on. I could see a couple waiting outside the door. I soon picked up my bag and threw all other items that I had already unpacked onto a side bag and was soon out of su-4, with a pending shower that would now not be.
Suite 2 was just identical to where I had left, three-doors away. Same TV that did not have channels, at least the remote worked and for sure there were no channels showing anything. The big black ants still roamed the floor in their twenties. I let them be – they let me be. Surprisingly, even a new cricket was available in this room, but next to the bedroom wardrobe. The only difference in su-2 was that the previous occupant had already decided to take a nap, before being moved to another room, judging from the crumbled bedding.
The flaking in the bathroom was worse, though the flex at least had a shower-head. I let status quo prevail, even as I switched on the water boiler ready for a shower. The shower would not be, since by that time my colleagues were already knocking on my door so that we can go for dinner. The shower would have to wait.
We walked to the kiosks just next to the main stadium, the very stadium where our run would start in less than ten hours. We walked around the kiosks looking for a place that could offer us ‘something good’ for a final dinner before a run.
We ended up getting a ‘ntilie’ type meal, where you get servings from different pots. In my case I got some little rice with some little beans for 800 shillings and downed it with a 350ml Mirinda for 500 shillings. We had already been informed by the caretaker that there was no chance of getting breakfast at six, since they start serving at seven. I therefore bought a 500ml bottle of juice for 1,000 shillings with some two cakes for 400 for breakfast. A cold breakfast would do.
After dinner we did trace Beryl and got our running kits. She is the only one whom I know that drives a Kenyan car into TZ and back during such a marathon. I wonder how she survives the stubborn road sentries and unreasonable speed limits.
I was handed over a sleeveless T-shirt and runner number 467.
“And coaches… surprise….,” Beryl drew my attention to what she was holding, still seated on the passenger front side of the car.
I looked to see what she had.
She had a runner number with the same yellow background colour like mine.
“Mmmh, mmh, say something!,” she prodded.
I was still seeing double. I had to adjust my specs.
“Say it, common, say it!”
“You are not! Are you?,” I said.
“Yes I am. Surprise, surprise! I am doing a 42!”
I took a shower around ten-thirty. It was rather a trickle of hot water coming from the shower head. I survived the prolonged shower. I was in bed by eleven. The earliest I have slept this year. The room was hot, but there were two wall mounted fans, one in the living room, the other in the bedroom. The windows were also completely open, with the wire-mesh screens being the only barrier between external elements and the inside. I was too tired to think about these. I just wanted a cool environment for a good sleep. I was soon in slumber land, with my fate now left to the alarm set to wake me up at 5.30am.
Sometime in the dead of the night I heard the whistle. I immediately knew that it was the cricket waking me up.
“It is not yet morning!,” I talked loudly in the direction of the wardrobe.
As if it had heard, the thing stayed quiet for a moment.
Then….
It just resumed its loud whistle as if it was in charge of things in that suite! I could not hunt it down! Surely it was in charge, since there was nothing that I could do but to sleep with that loud whistle in the background.
The unmistakable chime of the alarm was loud and clear at five-thirty. I did not hesitate. I was out of bed in one step. I opened the fridge and got out the juice and the two cakes. I was soon munching out and sipping in. I was to sip only 300ml of this liquid – and that is what I did, ensuring that I did not over-drink.
I left the suite at six-fifteen. By then the announcements from the stadium were loud and clear. I was in the stadium by six-twenty. The run that was to start at 6.30am would now start at 6.45am. I started looking around for Janet and Beryl whom we would be pounding the tarmac with. I would trace Janet first, very ready for the long run. I could not trace Beryl.
Then….
“Urban swaras?,” I looked at her T.
“Another surprise, I have joined the swaras!”
“But… but when did you defect from NMM2?”
“Long story,” she brushed off the most significant discovery of the day.
Ready or not...
The 3-2-1 countdown was without fanfare. It just happened, and we started the run at 6.45am from within the tracks of the stadium. We exit the stadium as we stumbled upon the many other runners of the 21k and 10k categories who had filled the road. We struggled through and got out of the campus compound. The run was on.
I was doing this run for a second time. First time was a scouting mission. This time it was a real run. As usual, the 42k starts on the 21k and that is the mantra that kept me going for the first 100 minutes. I just needed to make it to the 21k, then face that 10km hill that starts from 21k all the way towards 30k. The first 21k were uneventful. I met Onyi past the loop at his 11k, while I was on my 10k. At that speed he would surely crack this run in under 3hours, since he was not far behind the leading pack.
After the loop on the way back I met Janet on the opposite side. We said our ‘hi’s before we went our different directions. Beryl would not be far behind as we exchanged greetings. In front of me there are two guys who have been outpacing me since the 5km. Now at 11k, they both just stop, stand beside the road and in unison unzip and pee into the drainage next to the road. They are just next to the runners’ path. They do not seem to mind the runners, and the runners do not seem to mind them.
Later on, around the 15k, someone spits noisily onto my upcoming footstep and blows his nose loudly onto the air in front of my approach. With corona fear in the air, this is not great.
“Gross!,” I say.
He looks at me in a manner to ask, ‘what’?
“Great,” I repeat, as I pass him and increase my pace on the hilly path from 15k towards 18k.
We get the first Coke at 15k. The previous three of so water points did not have Coke, which is strange for this run that has a reputation of being ‘cokeful’. But this celebration of the first Coke is short lived, since a runner passing by my right side soon knocks that tumbler out of my hand and the black gold becomes a drink for the ancestors. He apologies as he goes along. I forget that episode in a hurry.
I get the second Coke at the 18k, and as fate would have it, this also goes down to the ancestors after only one sip, when the tumbler slips.
“My ancestors, please leave me alone! Let me be!,” I beg the ground, as I keep going.
I am glad that the 21k mark is coming up. I can even figure out where it is, because the 21km runners are already joining in as they head towards the finish. And soon enough I can see that ‘Start’ line – and for a 42km run, this is for sure the start line, as you hit the 21k mark. That point also marks the start of the uphill run for about 10k. If you are a ready for this hill, then you are ready for the 42. If you are not ready, or you joke around with this hill, then your 42 run is ruined.
My run was not ruined. I took the hill slowly in my stride, being aware at every milestone, sorry kilometer-stone, that there was still more hill to come. From 21k runners get to marvel at the mammoth mountain that persists in front of them for about 8km. Only the turn towards the right as we head back forces us to now turn away from the Kilimanjaro mountain. It is awesome. It is high!
From the 21k Kili met the expectations in terms of water, Coke, glucose and fruits every three or so kilometers. At 32km, just on the turn towards the last 10k, I was given a large water melon. They seem to have just cut a chunk of about a quarter of the fruit and handed it over. It was heavy. It was handy. It was yummy! I kept munching on it as I went along, all the way to the 40k. By then the markers had turned from number of kilometers done, to number of kilometers remaining. That means that the marker was now reading ‘2km to go’.
This ‘2km to go’ is where runs are also ruined. By this time, you are completely tired and ‘finished’. You assume that 2km is a stone throw away, but it is not. 2km by definition is a run of over ten minutes. I already had this in mind and hence kept going, knowing that the run was still ten minutes away. I just had to keep going until I see that finish line. Nothing, repeat, nothing, was going to mess my well-crafted run plan.
I would be at the stadium some ten minutes later, at 10:27am, having conquered the second Kili. But I was kind-a-surprised when the phone with Endomondo gave me that ‘the app has stopped working’ message, with the only option being to reset and restart. Imagine if that was the only thing tracking my run this year?
I was however prepared for this particular eventuality with a plan B, as I stopped the Runkeeper on the other phone. This showed a time of 03.43.00 for 42.16km. The official results put me in position 106 in a time of 03.42.31. I had shaved off almost 15-minutes from my last year’s Kili time.
The men’s run was won by a Kenyan in a time of 02.16.50, with the top 7 positions being an all Kenyan affair. The women category was also won by a Kenyan in 02.47.05, with Kenyans also taking the top three positions. The 21k event was won in 01.03.59 and 01.09.54 for the men and women events respectively - taken by a Kenyan and a Tanzanian.
Twisted
I left the stadium and the fanfare behind me. I was tired, but not as tired. My legs hurt, but not as hurting as last year. That would mean that my run strategy had worked, which was, ‘know what to expect and manage it well’. I did take a shower then the morning breakfast just after eleven.
We decided to check out of MUCOBS and experience another joint for this one last night. Zebra was recommended and Zebra we went using two tuk tuks, over here called ‘bajaji’. Zebra is a six-story deal with very clean rooms… but at a price of USD45.00 + $1.35 for paying by credit card. I wished that I had stayed at MUCOBS, but a final night to rest them tired legs with a 32-inch TV that works was worth the cost.
We had to take some lunch as we waited for the check-in at Zebra. By three, after our lunch, we were still waiting to check-in. We eventually checked in and agreed to meet up at six and look for a place to take some dinner. Unfortunately, our clean rooms did not have a clean wifi. You had to stand out in the stairway to get some wifi signal.
I took a shower at four and started looking for some sleep in the two-hour waiting period before the evening meetup. I was just starting to get some sleep when a persistent knock interrupted by drowsiness.
“What,” I shouted from the bed.
No answer.
“What is it?”
No answer.
I got up and went to the door. I opened up and saw the hotel worker, clad in her blue uniform.
“Nimekuretea sabuni na maji.”
(*I have brought the soap and water)
For crying out loud! Could this not wait!!
“Ahsante,” I picked the two small soap pieces and the two half-litre bottles from her. It was now just about 5.50pm. The alarm would be going off in another 10-minutes. There was no need going back to bed. I sat around and flipped through the TV channels looking for nothing in particular.
We walked the five minutes to the roadside establishment, where we had early taken our lunch. Our group of three guys and three girls were just starting to settle in with a cup of masala tea when it started raining. We moved from the verandah area to the inside of the building. Some drunk local would soon get into an altercation with members of our table, even as the reggae music continued loudly in the background.
I learnt a valuable lesson that you cannot win an argument with someone who is under-the-influence. However, it was time to abandon ship and walk back to our hotel. It became a loss to the proprietors who allowed a loud-talking drunk to ruin their chances of benefiting from ‘cha mlevi huliwa na mgema’ as we left with full pockets.
The rain had already subsided by the time we walked back to the hotel around ten. I tried to get some sleep by flipping through the TV channels, and at some I got the sleep. I was first woken up by the shouting of revelers somewhere in the building. It must have been at the downstairs pub.
“Must they shout that loudly!,” I yawned as I groped for more sleep after that interruption.
I would be woken up a second time by the sound of the rain sometime in the night. This rain persisted upto the time the alarm went off at 5.45am, when I took a quick shower and ran downstairs from the first-floor room ready to leave. I expected some packed breakfast as had been promised the previous night, but was surprised when I was told that ‘wenzako wako humo ndani wakinywa chai’.
I joined the five at the main dining just behind the reception. They were concluding their breakfast. I took a cup of black tea with a toast of break and was soon ready to depart.
The Impala shuttle bus was already parked outside the hotel doors. It was still raining. I would take a ‘jampu siti’ since some luggage had to be crammed inside the bus due to the fear of it being rained on if put on the carrier. That situation would however last for just the first twenty minutes of the journey, as the passengers were soon ‘causing’ as to why they are traveling uncomfortably, while the luggage was comfortably seated.
The driver would then drive into some roadside petrol stations, stop in the rain, and then start uploading luggage onto the carrier. By then enough abuses had been exchanged between the passengers themselves, over nothing at all, just varied opinions as to how the situation should be handled.
Unfortunately, even after the dust had settled, I still found myself as the only one who still remained on a jump seat. At Arusha I was transferred to another shuttle where I had a seat for two all to myself for the journey back to Nairobi... as Kili turned out to be just another run in the life of a runner.
WWB, the coach, Moshi, Mar. 2, 2020
