House of Courage: An internship in Mombasa, Kenya

I go running. In my efforts to train for the Twin Cities Marathon on October 7th, I have stuck to a loose schedule of running for the last two weeks. I get up early in the morning and run through the villages up toward the power house company of Kenya, Bamburi Cement.

Running in these conditions are some of the most treacherous I have ever experienced. Unlike Nairobi, and my experience in Montana last summer, the elevation is not as high creating an extreme training for the lungs. No, Mombasa is very near sea level, but my lungs are getting a new type of excruciating work out.

I like to call it The Burning.

Yes, The Burning consists of several different types of burns occurring in the morning hours. You have your diesel burning coming off of the exhaust of cars, matatus and heavy trucks that pass you by. There is the wood burning that comes off of the many morning fires that are lit on the side of the road for cooking the morning’s mahambri for breakfast. And, of course if you’re really lucky, there are your classic tire burnings. I don’t know why the tires are burning, they just are.

I thought the dirt and gravel road was treacherous in Montana, but that was nothing compared to the Old Malindi road. The vehicles and bikes are cutthroat and will pass each other on either side with disregard for possible on coming traffic, much less people. The sides of the road have no discernable walk and are even worse terrain than the road.

Keeping footing and dodging human and live stock traffic is a delicate balance. The other day I nearly had my first collision with a kid (not the goat variety, usually they make better efforts to get out of the way). I was running along on of the only pieces of sidewalk (put together by our good Bamburi Cement Company) with a small girl walking to school ten feet in front of me. I took a brief second to look down to make sure my feet were moving on solid ground and when I looked up she had walked five feet back and was now looking straight down at her shoes. I don’t remember much but that I did a quick side step, slipped in some mud and crashed skinning my left knee and forearm.

I quickly got up and kept running with the bloody scabs. It’s already a big enough spectacle to see the white man running in the villages of Mombasa: best not to see the white man down in the mud griping in pain. The little stared at me in complete horror as I kept going. I turned back and smiled.

This was the worst incident. There have been many more positive ones. From people yelling, “go mzungu go!” and “Bravo Bravo!” to my excursions to the beach where the Kenyans join me and keep a stronger pace that keeps me going.

Today I ran ten miles and was on the beach to see the early sunrise over the Indian Ocean. It was good.