Ready to Run

You know it’s hot in Namibia when your cold shower still makes the mirror in the bathroom steam up.

In October, there’s a race weekend in Swakopmund! While there are several smaller races for children and families, those of us volunteers are getting giddy about the marathon and half marathon. Those of you from Glenview probably think I’m joking when I say I’m excited about this. “Karen? Running? I thought she had a bum foot. Hasn’t she always hated running??” In fact, I got the crazy idea last April to run in the Country Music 1/2 Marathon in Nashville at the end of the month. So, after registering the night before the race, I successfully (and surprisingly) ran my first half marathon! For 2011, what would be better than running one in Namibia? Amy and I have even discussed running the full marathon if we get our acts together and start training. Needless to say, I’m very excited to head to the beach in October and run in the cool weather – whether it’s a 5k or a 42k!

Today, I went for my first run in Namibia. Running is an interesting thing over here...first of all, no one does it. Everyone thinks you’re really strange for running for fun. After a long day of pounding mahangu, handwashing clothes, hand-plowing fields, and taking care of the animals, who would want to do any extra work? In addition, there’s a fine line between whether or not wearing shorts as a woman is appropriate. To be frank, knees are the boobs of Namibia. It can be very scandalous to show your knees depending on how conservative your village is.

I started out just exploring town in my shorts. I’m very familiar with the five blocks between school and the main road but I have not yet ventured out to the back roads. I discovered several churches (one that reminded me of a bilingual tent revival and another that had people pouring out of it, singing and dancing very loudly), a large number of people gathered for a soccer game, many traditional mud hut settlements, and several oshanas (big holes that fill in with water during the rainy season and are an essential source of irrigation and nourishment for rural communities). I did some running on these back roads and certainly got some funny looks, but none that told me it was time to stop.

Eventually, I made it out to the main road: the B1. As I suspected, there aren’t enough main roads to run on in Ohangwena – it’s too tiny of a village. The B1 is the biggest highway in Namibia (only one lane each way but nonetheless, it’s fairly “busy”). If I want to train and run any significant distances, it looks like that will be my option. Running down the B1 was interesting. I got honked at by every car that passed by (as we were told in orientation, “it’s not that you look good, they just want to give you a ride and get your fare”) and yelled and whistled at by people in the shebeens (informal bars...again, mostly just because I’m strange – not because they’re hitting on me).

Challenges to running in Namibia:

– your only choice is to run on sand. sometimes it’s compact road sand, but a lot of times it’s squishy beach sand

- the elevation is high! difficulty breathing

- it’s a bajillion degrees here this time of year

I have to say that it’s days like these that make me really appreciate the cold shower.