It’s July 4th and we’re at home in Ellensburg. We spent the entire month of June traveling, first in Kenya and then in Greece. We arrived home on Thursday after a long day that started in Athens and ended here. It’s good to be home. Uhuru is reconnecting with friends and animals. Apollo is reconnecting with friends and pursuing several passions: taking things apart, baking, and water fights. Carey and I are enjoying seeing friends again and trying to simplify our lives. After living with a small set of possessions for almost 4 months, we arrived home and thought “why do we have all this stuff?”
I didn’t get much posted on the blog in June. It seemed that these three factors never came together: internet access, charged computer batteries, and time. I’ve got several more reflections on Kenya and also on Greece that I want to post. I figure I’ll try to post them over the next couple weeks. After all, this blog has been like a journal and since returning home I’ve had lots of people tell me they’ve enjoyed it. So, without further ado, another blog entry: Running with the Somalis.
Runners from all over Kenya, all over Africa, and all over the world come to Iten to train. We had three neighbors from Somalia. They were very friendly and had different backgrounds.
Abdi (Netherlands-Somalia), Rashid (Kenya) and Mohammed (Somalia) on a recovery jog
Abdi was living in our house when we arrived. We moved into two empty bedrooms and Abdi stayed in the third while we were there. Abdi is 21; he left Somalia when he was a small child and moved to the Netherlands where he is now a citizen. (At the time there were both widespread famine and battles between warlords in Somalia.) He played soccer until he was 18. One summer his coach told him to run to keep in shape. After one week of running a friend convinced him to do a 5k. He won in just over 17 minutes. Then next week he did another in about 16:20. The next week, his third week running, he ran 15:50. He decided to switch from soccer to running. He has since run about 13:40 for 5k and 29:10 for 10k.
Abdi was very knowledgable about running and exercise. One day while doing core exercises he spent several minutes helping another neighbor perform “Jane Fondas,” a core strength exercise, with proper form. Although he often ran very hard, he was careful to take his easy days easy. “If you run with the group every day, you will become overtrained or injured. Someone in the group was resting yesterday and they will push the pace today. When it is supposed to be an easy run, take it easy.” I went on several easier runs and some hill workouts with Abdi. I figured there wasn’t much point in doing the harder runs with him because we are such different speeds. But one time we went on a run that kept speeding up. I got dropped and Abdi kept speeding up and finished well under 5 minute/mile pace. After a few weeks Abdi went back to the Netherlands for a few weeks to race.
Abdi returned with two friends: Mohammed and Bashir, both also 21. Bashir had left Somalia as a child and moved to Belgium. Mohammed had only left a year and a half ago. It was their first time training in Kenya. Mohammed moved into the room in our house and Abdi and Bashir stayed in a new apartment about 20ft from our front door. The first week they were there Osama Bin Laden was killed. Mohammed, who had left Somalia most recently, was very happy. He said there was a recent influx of Islamic extremists into Somalia, and that is a large part of why he left. He said that terrorists make it so hard for him: “I mean, my name is Mohammed! These terrorists make people suspicious of me.”
Mohammed, Abdi, Yusef (Kenyan Neighbor), and Bashir offering to share their dinner.
Mohammed, Bashir and Abdi were generous neighbors. Abdi bought a goat and had a barbeque. They shared the meat with us. Another day they came back from Eldoret, a larger city, and were excited to report that they had found someone selling camel milk. They brought back a gallon, and shared it with us. (I couldn’t tell much difference, but we drank it with tea so that might have masked subtleties.) Bashir had a stomach ache, and he thought the camel milk would help. His stomach ache persisted, so I don’t think it did. They invited us for tea or to share meals often. The Somalis serve their meals in a large serving dish. Everyone washes their hands and then eats from the communal plate. I joked that “if one person is sick, everyone is sick.”
Abdi, Mohammed (in the plastic bag shirt), and Bashir
In many ways, a 21-year old Somali is like a 21-year old anywhere. They listed to hip-hop (sometimes in English, sometimes in Arabic.) They watched Adam Sandler movies that Abdi had on his laptop. They are on facebook. They had silly ideas sometimes: one day Mohammed decided that if he ran wearing a plastic bag for a shirt he would lose weight.
Like the Kenyans, they were totally dedicated to their running. They usually trained twice a day, and really focused on resting in between. I went with them to the track one day and as they did their last workout before returning to Europe (this was about 4 days before a race): 3x800, 3x600, 3x300. They were training with a New Zealander, a Sudanese guy, and several Kenyans. It’s a good thing I didn’t try to run with them, because they were flying!
They got back and raced. Bashir and Mohammed got new 5k PRs in 13:50. Abdi was a few seconds behind, but he was ahead of them the next week. These times are national level, but all these athletes need to get into the 13:10s to qualify for world events. But perhaps we’ll see them representing Somalia, Belgium, or the Netherlands a year or two down the road.
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