Becoming a Runner

I’m not a runner. Never have been.  I stick to sports that require less than five minutes of intense exertion at any given time: 100m dash, competition cheerleading, diving, but never long-distances.  Living in the home country of some of the world’s best marathon runners though has somehow inspired me to at least try the whole running thing.  Each November Addis Ababa hosts The Great Ethiopian Run, a 10k featuring some of the best runners, and well, anyone willing to try their best.  I decided last November that I would love to run in the 10k this year, giving myself a year to figure out how to run long distances.  

In February, during my group’s Mid-Service Conference, they announced a run in May being hosted by The Great Ethiopian Run, in collaboration with the NGO Save the Children to raise money to help with healthcare for pregnant women in Ethiopia.  An opportunity to help and a motivation to continue my training? I was sold.  This run was a 7k, and was going to be held in Hawassa, about 4 hours south of Addis.  I had 2 months to become a runner.

sunrise in the countryside

Running to me has resulted in pretty bad outcomes so far in this country.  The couple times I tried last year I wound up with kids chasing me and rocks thrown at me, bringing my confidence down a bit.  This time I decided it would be necessary to sacrifice my habit of sleeping in until 8am and additionally I would find out, shed a bit of pride.  6am has slowly become one of my favorite times in the day.  Not initially, but once I started getting the hang of jogging I found my sunrise jogs to be the most peaceful time of my day.  Not to mention the fact that my dog, Arbay, loves the run more than anything.

My regular route is a 4k, and sometimes I’ll increase it to almost 6k, but I’ve found my pace, which is admittedly slow, but I am happy to say I officially enjoy running.  The first morning the kids who live at my turn-around point started running with me I wasn’t sure what to think.  The last kids who ran with me threw rocks at my dog and me, but I started talking to them and now they’ve become a crucial part of my routine.  The kids are 6-8th graders who live on this farm about 2k away from my house and each morning they run with me back to my house, books in hand for school and shoes-optional.  It’s humbling having children without shoes run faster than you.  But I also remind myself that I live at 7,000ft, which makes for a challenge, an altitude they’ve lived at their whole lives.

May 1st, the day before the run, a bunch of volunteers arrived in Hawassa, ready to support Save the Children and run our best.  My goal: run the whole race.  The 7k was scheduled for 9:30am, not an ideal time considering how hot Hawassa gets, but the 21k run was appointed the early timeslot, understandably.  

The morning of the race was lots of fun, Peace Corps staff came to support us and even brought us Peace Corps hats to wear; swag, finally!  We were all pumped up, and that was before famous Ethiopian runners Haile Gebre Selassie and Turunesh aired the horn to start the run.

We were off! The first half being a run next to the lakeside, and although the path was narrow for such a large group, the scenery was unrivaled.  

The brochures had told us there would be bottled water along the route, which I kept hoping to find, but to no avail other than some locals splashing welcomed lake water from buckets.  The 10am heat was beating down towards the end but I kept going and proudly finished without walking.  It’s officially the longest I’d ever run.  What a fun day! I am now looking forward to adding 3k by November for the run in Addis.

Some of us Group 2 folks after the run

Arba Minch and the Bale Mountains

February brought a big mile-marker for my training group: Mid-Service Conference! This means that we are half-way through our two years of service, and had a three day conference to catch up on all we are doing at site.  Since we were already in Addis for the meeting, a few friends and I decided to take the next week to do one of my absolute favorite things, travel!

I do realize that I live abroad, and in some ways I have been “traveling” for 15 months now, but having the opportunity to get out of site and visit to a new part of the world always makes my heart beat with excitement! My wonderful friend Danielle and I decided we wanted to visit the Bale Mountains in southern Ethiopia, but of course plans kept changing until the day before we left, when it was finally decided that four of us would first spend a long weekend in Arba Minch.  This city in southern Ethiopia literally means “Forty Springs” and is most well-known for its national park, Nech Sar, "White Grass."

After a day full of buses from Addis, our bus arrived in our destination city, which I can only begin to describe as something from a fairy tale.  A smaller city surrounded by mountains on three sides, and two lakes on the other that just screamed adventure to us-- Exactly what we were looking for.

A quick bus transfer and we finally made it to a village in the surrounding mountains, Dorze, which boasted a cultural lodge, where you sleep in the local huts, for under $10 a night!  A buffet of Ethiopian food, a personal gabi (local blanket/jacket) draped on each of our shoulders, a couple glasses of tej (local honey wine), and a night filled with traditional music and dancing; we couldn’t have asked for anything more!

The next few days we spent exploring the national park, stalking what appeared to be the last four zebras in Ethiopia, spotting a Peter Pan-sized crocodile and camping under a canopy of trees.  I must add that there are more than four zebras (which, in Amharic, are called striped donkeys) but while we were in the park only four ever came into sight.  We had so much fun, despite the fact that it seemed like every bus or tour guide we dealt with wanted to try to rip us off more than the last guy.  I could write an entire book about the art of bargaining in Ethiopia, but at the end of the day we are still ferengi in their eyes, and therefore, rich.  An emotional beating every time you get judged for the color of your skin, but I’m hoping it is making me a stronger person in the long run.

Moving past that unplanned tangent, we then cut across to Hawassa meeting up with another volunteer and friend from home, who were joining us for the Bale Mountains portion of our trip! Traveling from Hawassa to the entrance of the Bale Mountains National Park proved to be another full day on buses. Hawassa to Shashemene to Dodola to Adaba and finally to Dinsho! Four legs later we were dropped off right outside the entrance gate where we happily accepted the “resident rate” and hiked in a couple km to our first campsite.  We were only in the park a few minutes before seeing our first nyala and several dik diks.

We camped in the park for three nights, each at a different campsite, hiking during the day to new areas.  Since two horses and a guide were compulsory, it worked out well that Danielle and I could hike without our packs, while all the boys carried theirs, leveling out the playing field!  It was such a relaxed environment; each new area was filled with places to explore: waterfalls, forests, cliffs.  We would arrive in the afternoon, setup camp, and spend the rest of the day playing games and discovering the surroundings.

I learned that the local guides are a lot better at building fires, and keeping them alive than we are.  They are also able to endure long nights of cold rain without tents to keep them dry, only shallow caves to barely shelter them.  We had so much fun hiking through the Bale Mountains and enjoying the beautiful region.  Wart hogs and their babies scampered around the fields, mountain hyrax jumped from cliff to cliff, and six ferengi balancing on rocks to cross a river while carrying packs.  We succeeded in finding an adventure; we always do.

My First Ethiopian Travels

After IST (Peace Corps In-Service Training) in Sodere I was able to take my first trip in Ethiopia and I decided to head down south.  My friend Danielle and I were able to travel to Hawassa, Yirgalem and Lake Langano to visit other volunteers, do a little work, and have some well-deserved time off.  It seemed like a completely new world traveling south through green fields, even stopping on our way to Hawassa to buy fresh strawberries.  The city of Hawassa lies on a lake providing the perfect backdrop for sunsets and lots of wildlife to see.  Besides the massive stork-type birds found all over the city we were able to see goureza monkeys and we took a boat ride to see the hippos in Lake Hawassa.  At least eight hippos had their heads sticking up out of the water amongst the long grass.  Of course there were also a lot of new restaurants to try; countless places claiming true “ferengi food” and some even resembled food found in America!

After a quick visit in Hawassa we escaped to our friend Jordan’s town, Yirgalem, just one hour south.  Combining work and pleasure, we were able to take a look at Jordan’s host organization, the Beza Youth Center, and see another part of the south.  It was interesting the see another town with the supposed same population as my town, and yet it seemed so different.  Besides the surrounding forests, and green plants, Yirgalem is spread out to seem much bigger.  One night we took a hike into the forest to a lodge where we saw a hyena-feeding.  Three hyenas came within 20 feet of where we were sitting!

Lastly we visited Lake Langano on out way back up to Addis Ababa. Lake Langano is the only swimmable lake in the whole country, and I was excited to jump right in!  Although the water was mud-colored, the cool water was welcomed after the hot springs of Sodere.  We had a wonderful day swimming and kayaking around the lake, it almost seemed like we weren’t in Ethiopia for a day.

Overall the trip triggered my travel bug and has made me start to mentally plan my future adventures around Ethiopia.  This country is so vast, full of different places to visit.  I can’t wait to see more.