“run, run nicely!”
Well, I started writing this post about a month ago and lost
track of it. But I’m gonna give it a shot:
Pretty much any time I see a new person, or a kid, while I’m
running, I’ll get pelted by cries of “hardloop, hardloop, hardloop!” run, run,
run.
But my favourite is when those kids yell at me, but then
decide to tag along. I kind of felt like the pied piper today—I was running out
of the village and at the edge of the houses, there were a bunch of kids
playing in a field. They saw me from a ways away, and ran across the field to
watch me.
It was really impressive, I had 2 kids—a 10 year old and a
12 year old—come with me for probably 5 miles! I’m not gonna claim that I’m in
shape right now, but we were probably going somewhere in the vicinity of 8:15
miles. (yes, I’m staying in Namibia, and yes, we use metric here, and no, I
still have no idea how to measure my mileage in kilometers.) Dang African kids.
Anyway, I was surprised. I tried to talk them into coming to St. Therese when
they get to secondary school so they can run with me, but I’m not sure if it’ll
work.
Even though I usually only have time to run twice a week
here, I’m still really REALLY glad it’s part of my life. And that it’s
acceptable (although weird) in my village. I’ve found that not only it is,
obviously, a way for me to stay healthy and relieve stress, but it also helps
me to get out and see people (and for them to see me). Yay running!
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