An oasis in Nairobi

After spending a few days in western Kenya on a trip for a group that advocates for more global health research, I returned to Nairobi last night for just 24 hours. I went out with some friends to dinner and a nightclub, where we saw things we had never seen before. There was dancing that left little to the imagination, a big woman who gyrated her hips in such wide circles we were awestruck, and gumby-like men dancing with gumby-like women.

I didn’t expect to run this morning. But I did, joined by my colleague Michelle and her friend Natasia. The day was beautiful. Blue skies, 70 degrees, a light breeze. We drove to an oasis in the middle of the city, the Arboretum. 

Nairobi is traffic hell. A six mile ride can take two to three hours.  Buses and minibuses emit black smoke. But in the midst of these horrible road scenes is a protected forest with dirt pathways. One path around the circumference is two kilometers, or about 1.25 miles.

We set off under a canopy of mostly eucalyptus trees, an invasive species brought in years ago from Australia. The path was wet clay and soon we were running with inch-thick mud caked to our running shoes. But it felt great to be in a forest in Nairobi, almost euphoric, and we went down hills and up hills and along a roaring brook.

A monkey ran in front of me and scampered up a tree. It joined a family of monkeys and they all looked down on us as we ran under them.   We ended up running four laps, eight kilometers or five miles. We saw several other monkeys, red birds, orange birds, yellow birds.

I had to get back and pack my things for the plane ride home. I’m taking chunks of Kenya with me, clay caked to the bottom of my shoes. I packed them in plastic bags, and know that when I clean them at home I will get a good whiff of a side of Nairobi that I didn't expect.

Hippo Point, and Kisumu's wildlife

Runners love routine. They may have a variety of routes, but most run just a handful. I think it’s because sticking to a routine means there’s one less thing to think about. And there’s a lot to think about on a run.

So running while traveling often adds a degree of difficulty; it means finding a new route. I just traveled to Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city. It is in the western part of the nation, sitting on the shores of Lake Victoria. I had spent a few weeks in Kisumu a couple of years ago for research on my upcoming book, A Twist of Faith, and that meant I already had a running route.

I headed out to Hippo Point at first light. You can’t go earlier here. A motorcycle or bike or car or truck might hit you. There are also deep holes the size of car tires in the sidewalks. You could fall in and never crawl out. You can’t go much later either. Then the mixed traffic is a nightmare to navigate. Just when it seems safe a biker is flying right at you.

After a mile on the main road, I headed toward Lake Victoria. All downhill and dirt. My memories of the run started coming back to me: the old Sunrise Hotel, which now looked empty; large flowering bushes in front of large homes behind security walls; and the Kisumu Impala Park. A small herd of impalas, most with antlers, stood right by the fence and I stopped a few feet away. They were a little jumpy, but curious, too.

I ran around the park and came to the front gate, which was open, and I ran in a few yards. A sleepy park officer stopped me. He wouldn’t let me enter. The park has a leopard and a hyena in cages, and only the impala and a zebra or two wandering around. Next time.

Less than a mile down the road was Hippo Point. All the way, I ran through swarms of dragonflies. There were tens of thousands of them, hovering like helicopters about 15 feet in the air all the way to the ground. It felt almost like I was running inside a black cloud of insects. They maneuvered around me, not touching me once. I didn’t enjoy it, though.

At the point, hippos are said to come into the shore here, but I did see any. Instead, several fishermen readied their boats, and two gigantic black ibises cried out high in one tree.

The run is an out-and-back, and so I ran through the army of dragonflies, past the beautiful impala, up the hill, and on to the main road, where I avoided bikes, motorcycles, cars, trucks and large holes in the sidewalk. All is well in Kisumu.

Birthday run in Kenya: Crows and first steps

I turned 52 today. I arrived in Nairobi after a 19-hour flight from Washington. After I walked into my hotel room in downtown Nairobi, I laid down on my bed and surrendered. I slept for two hours, and knew I had to get up. It was late afternoon. I had to run.

Birthdays are important and birthday runs must happen without exception. There is something in the joy about being able to run, period. There is something about staying fit, no matter your age. But best of all, there are the sight aches and pains in legs and joints afterward that remind you that nothing happens without effort.

I ran to an old Nairobi standby: the Nairobi Club, an institution that started in 1901 and still has the feel of being in a place at the turn of the 20th century. You can almost imagine British colonial aristocracy sitting on chairs around the edge of a large green, oval-shaped field, politely cheering on the cricket teams.

Around and around the field I went, eight times in all, two minutes, 30 seconds a lap. African crows swooped over my head. A family of olive thrushes hunted for food nearby. The most impressive sight, though, was of a determined father and one-year-old son as the boy tried to walk on his own.

The boy had the look about him of a miniature Mr. T, the old TV show character. He was chunky for a one-year old, and his hair was cut in Mr. T's trademark thick Mohawk fashion.

Every lap I saw the boy walk a little farther. The father laughed and laughed, and encouraged him with each step. He even smoothed out the bumpy grass a half-step ahead of the boy. Still, the boy keep tipping, sprawling, nose-diving into the grass. Still, he pulled himself up and kept trying. He even laughed at his falls. I couldn't tell who was more determined: father or son. It made me think back to earlier birthdays, my 33rd, 36th, and 38th, when we had one-year-olds learning to walk and how completely astounding that whole experience was.

There were some parallel moments today on the Nairobi Club's cricket fields: a boy learning to walk, a birthday boy shuffling around him. A boy taking all the time in the world to learn to walk, a birthday boy taking forever to complete a few laps. It brought back memories of earlier time when first steps were the most glorious thing in the world.

A prayer for Stella

One of my favorite runs in the world – on par with running on tiny bridges over the Nile or on paths deep in the Vermont woods – is Central Park. And the best time to run it is fall.

It’s especially true on a morning like this: 54 degrees at 7 a.m., clear blue sky, a hint of a breeze, sun lighting up the Dakota building like a front-lit pearl.

I’m staying in a hotel on Park Avenue, around 38^th Street, which is a little far to do my regular Central Park loop, which takes me around the reservoir, up to 96^th Street area or so, and then back again. But I did it this morning, even with a late-ish 7 a.m. start. It required more dodging than normal, especially on the return, but the run was not too cold, not too warm, just right. And with the sun lighting up the NYC midtown skyscrapers, I felt I could have stopped for 10 minutes and just stared.

But I kept going – around the reservoir, around a loop in the park, out of the park down 5^th Avenue, until I came to the St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I decided I should poke my head in. It’s a magnificent gothic structure and very quiet at 8 a.m. on a Monday. I wandered down one side of the church and came to an area for Polish saints, which had rows of lit and unlit candles in front of beautiful old drawings of the saints.

I am a lapsed Catholic, but I do remember the importance of lighting a candle and saying a prayer for a loved one, or a departed loved one. I immediately thought of my wonderful neighbor, Stella Donovan, who had a bad fall several months ago, breaking her upper fibula, near her hip. She has only been home for short periods since and it’s unclear whether she will move back into her home full-time.

So I said a prayer for Stella, and I took one of those long wooden sticks (skinnier than a chop stick) to light a candle for her. It was easy to light the stick, but I dipped it into each candle holder without any luck. It turned out that there was either no more wax in the holders or that the wick was buried in the wax. I didn’t really want to dig into any of the candles, so I stood on my tippy-toes, and did some candle hunting.

In the meantime, a priest started saying Mass. I was on my second fire stick. I was a little concerned I would have one of those Inspector Clouseau moments when I would reach, reach, reach, and tip over the whole box of candles, setting curtains ablaze, or something like that. Luckily, I found one holder with a teeny wick and a teeny pool of wax, and I got a little fire going. I said another short prayer for Stella and then I was off, stiff-legged down 5^th Avenue, happy to have an unexpected moment to think about someone I loved.     

Gavin's photo blog: Red Sox-Twins game

Here's the final blog from our trip -- a selection of Gavin's pictures from tonight's Twin-Red Sox game. You can tell from the quality not only Gavin's good eye but also his good seat. He and Lois sat in row M right behind home plate -- thanks to Tom's connections! Twins won 5-2.

The Twin's right fielder makes a catch on the warning track.

David Ortiz celebrates after hitting a home run

Kevin Youklis practices his hitting swing before an at bat.

A vote: Who has best facial growth?

Just before Gavin and I left St. Paul for our Dakota road trip, Gavin issued a challenge to Tom and myself: Let's see who can grow the best beard and moustache, he said. All three of us agreed, and here are the results:

Tom, who alone among us, didn't shave AT ALL for a week:

Then there's me, who gave a little shape to the whiskers:

And then there's Gavin, who on the last day of the trip shaved off what had become impressive sideburns and a wisp of a moustache, leaving just a few chin hairs. (Yes we need a magnifying glass.):

So who wins? I'm leaning toward Tom the purist as the only one who didn't shave at all. Look forward to your comments (or emails).

PS: This may be the last or next to last post from this trip, but I'll keep writing as I travel and as I run.

Water, water everywhere, and a restaurant scene

High waters approach this South Dakota farm.

Floods have hit the Dakotas, as most people know. We’ve seen it now from the southeastern South Dakota to the northwestern North Dakota. In Pierre, South Dakota’s capital pronounced Pier, the National Guard has blocked traffic from a long stretch of the Missouri River. Sandbags ring the shops on Main Street and houses along the Missouri. Some homeowners have gotten into spirit, spray-painting signs on front lawns that say things like “Fort Trachen” and “Fort Billingsley.”

I couldn’t find a Fort Donnelly, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Gavin and I are nearing the end of our 10-day, father-son road-trip, and the road out of the Badlands took us into the interior of South Dakota. He drove yesterday for a full two hours, and he hugged those yellow and white lines without having to say a word. He’s now up to 10 hours total driving on this trip (he is counting) and he’ll emerge – especially with some teaching ahead from Uncle Tom – with some newfound confidence in his abilities behind the wheel.

I ran yesterday and this morning. Pier (you have to get the pronunciation down) was a short run, more of an exploratory outing. After running along the river (and getting my feet wet as I trespassed beyond National Guard lines), I climbed a short hill to the black-domed state Capitol building and ran around the Governor’s “mansion.” It is a ranch house on steroids, beefed up in the middle, with a long circular drive, a basketball hoop off to the side, well manicured and quite approachable. I could have run up and rang the doorbell. South Dakota is not so worried about security.

South Dakota's Statehouse

I ran up to the Capitol building and decided to climb the stairs and go inside. I saw no one (it was 8 a.m.), took a self-guided tour booklet and learned about the 67 Italian stonecutters and artists who helped build it about 80 years ago. Each of the Italians, according to the book, had left a “signature” of sorts: a tiny blue tile on the multi-colored mosaic floor. Guided by the book, I started going up and down the marble stairways (only running into a few people who didn’t take a second glance at a fairly sweaty runner) until I finally found one of the blue tiles. That satisfied my itch, and I was out of the building, back to the hotel (where we had stayed up late watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the 10^th inning on rookie Josh Reddick’s walk-off single), and then we made our way out of Pier.

We drove through the northeastern part of the state for what felt like hours and hours in a good way, under a big dome of a blue sky, corn to the horizon, water on both sides of the straight-arrow highways lapping the asphalt, and dead skunks by the dozens. We saw so many dead skunks that we were ready for each: T shirts stretched to cover noses, PEE-YOU exclamations after each passing (some were truly horrid), laughing because that’s what two guys do on road trips when it comes to smells.

Gavin, I would honestly say, wins the Inappropriate Traveler Stinker Award. He revels in farting, unfortunately (as we are in close quarters), and he does this in startling fashion in public as well as private. There was a moment on the western edge of North Dakota, traveling south out of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, northern site, when we stopped at a roadside restaurant for a late breakfast.

It was one of those wide-open dining rooms and I picked a place that I thought would be far away from people (for aforementioned reasons). But the place filled up and we were surrounded. To our left were two elderly ladies and the waitress asked them: “Just your regular toasts, ladies?” and they nodded, and the thought passed my mind, life without teeth. To our back were four other elderly people who were chatterers. There was so much crosstalk that I couldn’t distinguish voices.

I was eating eggs and toast when suddenly, with no warning, Gavin let out a burb for the ages. BUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRBBBBBB. Or something like that.

There was silence around us. Gavin started to giggle. And to our backs, the four elderly people started to laugh. And laugh. They couldn’t control themselves. They slapped knees. They would laugh in waves, a slow period and then a big rush of laughter. I didn’t dare look.

We paid our $17 bill and walked out quickly, and we laughed, too, all the way down that North Dakota road, about a burb heard around a restaurant.

We’re now headed for St. Paul, to Tom’s wonderful apartment, to showers (yeah!), to a Red Sox-Twins game tonight and tomorrow night. I’m just back from an hour run around the Pickerel State Recreation Area (an above-average camp/swim site where we had a roaring fire last night) and I am experiencing a rare feeling on this trip: A chill. It must be 58 degrees and windy. I had the wind to my back on the way out, the wind in my chest on the way back, and, yes, I passed a dead skunk on the empty, empty road that had water on both sides of it and ducks scooting in the morning light. That skunk stunk. It’s all part of being on the road, a good thing.