Been waiting to write this blog for a long, long time. And now here we are, but where to start? Perhaps at the beginning.
I arrived in Tanzania late at night on June 16, 2010. We were staying a large religious complex called the Msimbazi Centre. I decided hey, why not get things off on the proverbial (and literal) right foot, and having been in country for about 12 hours, I got up and went for a run. It was weird, it was awkward, I spoke not a single word of Kiswahili, but when I finished, I was actually really proud of myself. I knew that the run I’d just finished would be one of the hardest I would ever go on. Not because of the distance, or the conditions. Because as the sun rose that morning on my new country, I got my first, albeit self-inflicted, experience of being estranged in a strange land. A few days later I first heard about the Kilimanjaro Marathon. From that point on, my life as a volunteer has been measured in the dusty miles of Tanzania’s byways, highways, and myways.
I woke up at 5:30 on Friday morning, having slept a few fitful hours. The day before my environmental club had successfully built its first compost pile, and I didn’t get home till late to begin packing for the trip to Moshi (a town at the base of Kilimanjaro where the marathon takes place). I left the house at 6:30, dropped off my bike and some valuables at a neighbor’s, and hiked the 8 kilometers to a nearby junction town where I boarded the bus to Moshi at 8:30am. The bus arrived in Moshi 9:30pm. In between I ate 3 sambusas, 2 yogurts, befriended a lovely mama who said she would pray for me during the race, was urinated on by a 2-year old (no biggie), vomited on by his mother (...yeah), and felt all the tendons in my knees begin to tighten like pulled rubber bands. It was lovely. Arrived alive, and that in and of itself was a victory. Moshi is a beautiful town, we went for a short run on Saturday morning to loosen the legs, and spent most of the day grazing and being nervous. Went to bed early, slept well, with the exception of a few trips to deal with the 6 liters of water I’d drank that day.
Which brings us to Sunday, and the reason for the season, 26.2 miles of awesome called the Kilimanjaro Marathon. The door guy at our hostel asked me yesterday why I was running this race. I didn’t have the language to explain it, so I had to go with “Napenda sana changamoto” (I really like challenges). But that doesn’t quite cover it. Why do people run at all? There are many more interactive, and healthier, forms of exercise, things like basketball, yoga, frisbee, hiking. All of which I enjoy more than running. But then, I never enjoy running while I’m running. I don’t presume to speak for others, but when I’m running, I’m contesting a very bitter and longlasting rivalry with myself. Was listening to Scott Van Pelt on my podcasts, and he said “ a rivalry only exists if when one team looks at the other, they see themselves.” Got that part covered. He also said, “a rivalry only exists if the other side can take something from that matters”. Which is also the case. This might be stupid. It probably is. There’s nobody but me who cares if I finish a run. But the way I work, in all things, involves this weird little duality, with a constant mental conversation between me and a part of me who is a bit skeptical. Of everything. It’s sort of like when NFL players start telling each other that nobody believes in them, even when newspapers are picking them to win Super Bowls and fans are spending millions on their jerseys and tickets. But sometimes you need a fire to fight, and if the friction isn’t there naturally, then you rub some sticks together. Which is basically how it works in my head. Whenever I go running, it’s a contest of pride and principle and self-worth, none of which have any actual connection to my exercise. But it means that every completed run is a victory, and that is what I enjoy about running. The victory of it, the triumph over the weaker parts of myself. Which makes a 5:15 marathon time an interesting thing to deal with.
Started out well enough, running with my friend Randi, with whom I have run many a morning mile in Tanzania. Ran the first quarter together, then I was not able to keep her pace for much longer. Finished the first half of the marathon in about two hours and a few minutes, runnin the whole way. Then the Kilimanjaro Marathon takes a turn, and it goes uphill, for the entire third quarter. And this is when your boy started hurting. I’ve tweaked my knee a few times training, and it started to flare up. The asphalt suddenly feels a lot harder, and each kilometer marker seems to take another year to pass. My slow-downs for the water stops became short walks, then a little longer. Around the 25km mark (there are 42km in a marathon), I slowed, and let up the jog, and began to walk. I alternated a kilometer walked with a kilometer run. Then maybe a kilometer walked and a third run. And by now my knee is screaming, and by the time I reached the turnaround point at the end of the third quarter, my running stints were about ten meters and ended with me limping and hopping on one leg. Wasn’t happening. Fell in with an Alaskan firefighter, started walking back downhill, 10.5 long and rather disappointing kilometers to go.
The verb to win in Kiswahili is “kushinda”. The verb to lose is “kushindwa”. A very small difference. A very thin line. Which is really how it works out, isn’t it? But this isn’t a baseball game. There is only one winner in a marathon, and everybody else is just another degree of shindwa. Just as I was. I lost the marathon. I wanted to run the entire race. I didn’t. I think most of you are still proud of me, and maybe so am I, but my goals were set, and they were not met. Which puts me in that funky little gray area where we all spend so much of our time. Am I a little disappointed today? Yes, absolutely. But I think that too, is ok. I’ve never understood the philosophy of expecting little and thereby avoiding disappointment. To be honest, I expect amazing things from myself, and from life. I’m often disappointed. But I believe with all my heart that those expectations make me chase triumph all the harder, and so often the chase itself, successful or not, walking or running, is the delight.
Which brings us to kilometer 35, 7km left to go, walking downhill, not looking forward to the next hour and a half’s walk of shame. And suddenly, I start to feel good again. And I start running again. Run for about two kilometers, and my knee starts killing me. Slow to a walk again, not at all happy. And ahead of me is a sign that says “kilometer 37”. Five to go. Five K. I’ve run it more times than I can count. And it might hurt, and it might hurt a lot. But tho much is taken, much abides, and it might hurt more, in its own way, to walk across that finish line. So I showed Mount Kilimanjaro, now behind me, my heels. And I started to run. Four kilometers left. I start picking up the pace. Three kilometers. A bunch of African boys are running with me, and we’re passing other runners. Two kilometers. I feel like I just started running. I feel amazing. One kilometer left. The last kilometer. And I look at the back of my left hand, where in the wee hours of the morning I wrote with a black Sharpie, WWKD. What would Kucz do? And setting aside the fact that the skinny bastard would have been done two hours and change before, I almost started to cry at the 41st kilometer of the Kili marathon.
Because nothing prepares you for the kind of friendship I have been lucky enough to find, the depth and breadth of which I never realized until I was far enough away to see the forest, not just the trees. I logged onto my email Saturday, to be greeted with 20 different messages wishing me luck. I couldn’t believe it when Mom told me that there was a tequila shot in my honor over the holidays. Being remembered like that, being present while being absent, is as touching a gift as I will ever receive. I am a part of all that I have met, and just looking at those four little letters, smudged and faded by sweat, reminded me of all the people whose cheers and thoughts were with me, even when their bodies were elsewhere. What would Kucz do? Finish the goddamn race. And at 11:45am, February 27th, I entered the Moshi soccer stadium, by myself, sweating, smiling, running…and people began to cheer. A hundred meters to go, all of my wind back, sprinting like a madman for the finish line while my friends who had been waiting in the baking heat screamed their heads off. And for every person who has ever shown a dusty mile their heels at my side, I thought of you in that moment. Debby Waldron, Tony Waldron, Natalie Struble, Anna Holland, Lauren Fink, Damon Laabs, Randi Walsh, Rocco Chierichella, and miss Kelsey Drake. Thank you all. To anyone who wished me well, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I crossed that finish line, a success and a failure, but proud as all hell. That which I was, I was, and that which we are, we are, made weak, perhaps, by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Never to yield.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
A Case of the Mondays
Went into the mountains to watch my Steelers. I got that chance. And I woke up this morning roughly where I went to sleep (at about 6:30am): just a little sad. Which is how every season ends for everybody, everywhere...except when it doesn’t. Then it’s amazing, it’s anarchy, it’s ice cream. The problem is that as positive possibilities accrue so do negative ones, so we get to the point where nothing would make me sadder than the Steelers losing the AFC Championship Game, except for the Steelers winning said game, and then losing the Super Bowl. Which happened, and thus I was, and am, a little sad. It’s stupid, it’s childish, it’s just a game. I know all of it. But the way I look at it, if I choose to not care, to not be saddened to some degree or another by every season’s end, I also forfeit my right to be joyous, jubilant, and jocular in victory. And as I rather enjoy my jocularity, it is therefore today’s duty for me to hang my head, just a little bit.
We watched the Super Bowl from a hostel room with two beds and a 10-inch TV. At 4am, as halftime began, we prepared our gameday snack: chapati (sort of thick tortillas), guacamole, french fries, beef, and chili sauce. More than anything else this is what Peace Corps means to me: adaptability. Whether it is chopping up avocados on a hostel floor with a Swiss Army Knife, hacking down the Christmas tree with a machete from someone else’s forest, or performing minor foot surgery in someone’s bathroom (read on), we are what the situation demands of us here, and we make the best of it. Why? Because we were the ones who wanted to be here, made it so, and now shall live with it.
Couple of stories coming about bugs. One a little graphic, one just quirky. For those weak of stomach, maybe skip the next two paragraphs. Might as well start with the bad and work backwards. Been running and running and running forever these days, and I noticed a calloused lump developing next to my left big toe. Thought nothing of it for a few days. Error, me. Turned out to be a jigger. A jigger, you ask? Oh, it’s a lovely little creature, like all of us in search of a home, shelter from the storm. And shelter it found. In my foot. It therefore began efforts to propagate its species. At some point in this process I realized that I had acquired a guest. Efforts were undertaken to bid him adieu. By that I mean I made use of my Leatherman and my pain tolerance. Little hard to see and operate on the bottom of your own foot, in case you were wondering. Particularly if you are late in attending to the problem, and there are, I’m afraid to say, a whole lot of little eggs to remove from your foot. Also in case you were wondering, a day that begins with a few dozen tiny C-sections on your own body tends to go downhill in a hurry. Did my best, I really did. But eventually had to employ the help of an expert. Which is how I found myself sitting in the hostel room, having the great Logan Loyola doing surgery with a nail clipper, and sterilizing myself with hopes, dreams, and antibiotic cream. Just another night on the other side of life.
Speaking of insects and moving to quirky. There is a new snack-craze sweeping the region. This happens every year. It requires shelling, frying, and salting. The resulting dish is delicious and nutritious, and is also, well, insects. They are called kumbikumbi, and you catch them (not sure how yet), remove the wings, fry ‘em, and throw some salt on top. I want to try sugar one day. When I first tasted this scrumptious treat, I was impressed, and said so. My neighbor and partner wanted to know the literal translation of kumbikumbi. I tell him that I sincerely doubt that my smallish dictionary has a definition for this specific type of edible flying insects. He insists, I acquiesce. We open the dictionary to the appropriate page. The entry for kumbikumbi reads: “flying termites. Tasty when fried.” Touche, dictionary.
Proceeding moja kwa moja (directly) into the realm of the blasphemous. Went over to a friend’s house for some chow the other day. We got to talking, and the topic veers, as it often does, to mambo ya utamaduni (cultural stuff). I, at some point, make the very silly mistake of mentioning that relationships in American are extremely different. That wasn’t the slip-up. The real gaff was saying how on occasion interested men and women may live together outside the covenant of marriage. My friend is a little distressed by the fact that these men and women are living their way straight to eternal damnation. Food arrives, and we eat. Not sure if her glimpse at the godless decadence of the modern youth caused what followed, but my guess would be...yeah. Getting ready to leave, when she begins to talk to me. It’s grander talk than normal conversation, and I understand fewer words, so it takes me until I hear something about rain, a boat, and “wanyama wawiliwawili” (animals two and two) to realize that we are talking about Noah. No sweat, I know this story. Then things get a little stranger. I start hearing that in the future, “watu wazuri watapaa!” and “wakosefu watabaki duniani”. Good people are gonna take off and sinners will stay here. Something about “mpinga Yesu”. And it takes me a while to catch on. But once she starts gesturing towards the forehead, talking about a number, and saying “mia sita, sitini, na sita”, I get it. The number is 666, the Yesu in question is the Anti-Christ, and I’m being told the story of the Rapture in Kiswahili. And how was your lunch?
I have to say that it was not the message that brought out my church giggles (I successfully held myself together). It was the memory of a fantastic episode of American Dad (lots of Fox cartoon references today) about the Rapture. Shortly after the children and pure disappear, people are understandably confused. So who arrives in this episode to bring clarity and dispel uncertainty? A sock puppet named Ricky the Raptor, to explain the Rapture. Couldn’t stop thinking about that damn puppet.
Had another episode of the church giggles in regards to witchery. But to begin at the beginning. Read a wonderful, engaging book before I left written by a Peace Corps Volunteer named Sarah Erdman, “Nine Hills to Nambonkaha”. In it she talks often about the communal use of witchcraft to explain the unexplainable, or even just the inconvenient (poor test scores by secondary students? Witches. Poor rains or harvests? Somebody angered a wizard. Soccer team a little loose on the defense? Warlocks. Kidding on that last one. Maybe). I was excited to learn about different belief systems, and was ever-so-slightly disappointed that my villagers are rather normal, if perhaps fervent, Christians. But maybe we were just getting used to each other. In the last few weeks, couple of nice moments: across the road from me lives a charming little bibi (grandmother). She’s sharp, no-nonsense, and likes to occasionally give me bags of tomatoes. I mentioned this to my other neighbor, and he remarked, in English, “You must be careful. She is such a wizard.” I like this phrase. I can picture Vince Vaughn saying it to a down-and-out buddy: “you’re such a wizard, baby”. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the kicker: as we’re walking back from a meeting, I say hello to a guy who runs one of the village shops. My counterpart again tells me to be very, very careful. Apparently there are a few wizards/witches in the village (a coven, if you will), that are working out an unusual spell upon the village. If you buy anything from them, and you don’t have the exact cost on you, you will give them a larger bill. They will return the difference. And at some point in the near future, that returned money will...disappear. Poof. So if you take nothing else from these random musings, remember this: when dealing with wizards, always, always, use exact change.
I love you all, hope people start commenting on the posts from time to time, if there's anything you want to know (or would like not to hear about going forward). Love you all, be well.
We watched the Super Bowl from a hostel room with two beds and a 10-inch TV. At 4am, as halftime began, we prepared our gameday snack: chapati (sort of thick tortillas), guacamole, french fries, beef, and chili sauce. More than anything else this is what Peace Corps means to me: adaptability. Whether it is chopping up avocados on a hostel floor with a Swiss Army Knife, hacking down the Christmas tree with a machete from someone else’s forest, or performing minor foot surgery in someone’s bathroom (read on), we are what the situation demands of us here, and we make the best of it. Why? Because we were the ones who wanted to be here, made it so, and now shall live with it.
Couple of stories coming about bugs. One a little graphic, one just quirky. For those weak of stomach, maybe skip the next two paragraphs. Might as well start with the bad and work backwards. Been running and running and running forever these days, and I noticed a calloused lump developing next to my left big toe. Thought nothing of it for a few days. Error, me. Turned out to be a jigger. A jigger, you ask? Oh, it’s a lovely little creature, like all of us in search of a home, shelter from the storm. And shelter it found. In my foot. It therefore began efforts to propagate its species. At some point in this process I realized that I had acquired a guest. Efforts were undertaken to bid him adieu. By that I mean I made use of my Leatherman and my pain tolerance. Little hard to see and operate on the bottom of your own foot, in case you were wondering. Particularly if you are late in attending to the problem, and there are, I’m afraid to say, a whole lot of little eggs to remove from your foot. Also in case you were wondering, a day that begins with a few dozen tiny C-sections on your own body tends to go downhill in a hurry. Did my best, I really did. But eventually had to employ the help of an expert. Which is how I found myself sitting in the hostel room, having the great Logan Loyola doing surgery with a nail clipper, and sterilizing myself with hopes, dreams, and antibiotic cream. Just another night on the other side of life.
Speaking of insects and moving to quirky. There is a new snack-craze sweeping the region. This happens every year. It requires shelling, frying, and salting. The resulting dish is delicious and nutritious, and is also, well, insects. They are called kumbikumbi, and you catch them (not sure how yet), remove the wings, fry ‘em, and throw some salt on top. I want to try sugar one day. When I first tasted this scrumptious treat, I was impressed, and said so. My neighbor and partner wanted to know the literal translation of kumbikumbi. I tell him that I sincerely doubt that my smallish dictionary has a definition for this specific type of edible flying insects. He insists, I acquiesce. We open the dictionary to the appropriate page. The entry for kumbikumbi reads: “flying termites. Tasty when fried.” Touche, dictionary.
Proceeding moja kwa moja (directly) into the realm of the blasphemous. Went over to a friend’s house for some chow the other day. We got to talking, and the topic veers, as it often does, to mambo ya utamaduni (cultural stuff). I, at some point, make the very silly mistake of mentioning that relationships in American are extremely different. That wasn’t the slip-up. The real gaff was saying how on occasion interested men and women may live together outside the covenant of marriage. My friend is a little distressed by the fact that these men and women are living their way straight to eternal damnation. Food arrives, and we eat. Not sure if her glimpse at the godless decadence of the modern youth caused what followed, but my guess would be...yeah. Getting ready to leave, when she begins to talk to me. It’s grander talk than normal conversation, and I understand fewer words, so it takes me until I hear something about rain, a boat, and “wanyama wawiliwawili” (animals two and two) to realize that we are talking about Noah. No sweat, I know this story. Then things get a little stranger. I start hearing that in the future, “watu wazuri watapaa!” and “wakosefu watabaki duniani”. Good people are gonna take off and sinners will stay here. Something about “mpinga Yesu”. And it takes me a while to catch on. But once she starts gesturing towards the forehead, talking about a number, and saying “mia sita, sitini, na sita”, I get it. The number is 666, the Yesu in question is the Anti-Christ, and I’m being told the story of the Rapture in Kiswahili. And how was your lunch?
I have to say that it was not the message that brought out my church giggles (I successfully held myself together). It was the memory of a fantastic episode of American Dad (lots of Fox cartoon references today) about the Rapture. Shortly after the children and pure disappear, people are understandably confused. So who arrives in this episode to bring clarity and dispel uncertainty? A sock puppet named Ricky the Raptor, to explain the Rapture. Couldn’t stop thinking about that damn puppet.
Had another episode of the church giggles in regards to witchery. But to begin at the beginning. Read a wonderful, engaging book before I left written by a Peace Corps Volunteer named Sarah Erdman, “Nine Hills to Nambonkaha”. In it she talks often about the communal use of witchcraft to explain the unexplainable, or even just the inconvenient (poor test scores by secondary students? Witches. Poor rains or harvests? Somebody angered a wizard. Soccer team a little loose on the defense? Warlocks. Kidding on that last one. Maybe). I was excited to learn about different belief systems, and was ever-so-slightly disappointed that my villagers are rather normal, if perhaps fervent, Christians. But maybe we were just getting used to each other. In the last few weeks, couple of nice moments: across the road from me lives a charming little bibi (grandmother). She’s sharp, no-nonsense, and likes to occasionally give me bags of tomatoes. I mentioned this to my other neighbor, and he remarked, in English, “You must be careful. She is such a wizard.” I like this phrase. I can picture Vince Vaughn saying it to a down-and-out buddy: “you’re such a wizard, baby”. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the kicker: as we’re walking back from a meeting, I say hello to a guy who runs one of the village shops. My counterpart again tells me to be very, very careful. Apparently there are a few wizards/witches in the village (a coven, if you will), that are working out an unusual spell upon the village. If you buy anything from them, and you don’t have the exact cost on you, you will give them a larger bill. They will return the difference. And at some point in the near future, that returned money will...disappear. Poof. So if you take nothing else from these random musings, remember this: when dealing with wizards, always, always, use exact change.
I love you all, hope people start commenting on the posts from time to time, if there's anything you want to know (or would like not to hear about going forward). Love you all, be well.
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