At the end of December, I traveled with my family to visit my daughter in Tanzania, where she had lived in 2004 and 2007. It has been a month since we returned, and it has become more than a little embarrassing that I haven't written anything about the trip.
For the first couple of weeks after I got back, my friends would ask me, "So, how was Africa? Did you keep your running streak going? Did you see any lions?" I always stammered out something vague to buy myself more time -- "It's hard to describe in a few sentence, but it was..." I would say, "...unforgettable, eye-opening, disturbing..." I would promise more detail, but not just yet. I made excuses saying that I needed to get over the jet lag, get used to the cold again, stop taking the anti-malaria drugs, regain my suddenly uncertain footing in the first world, and then I would be able to describe the trip properly...
Well, all those things happened, but still I dragged my feet.
There were a few times when I sat down fully intending to start writing. But then I would give up after a few paragraphs. Usually this would happen after a particularly intense flashback to something I had seen or experienced, and the sights, sounds, and smells of a certain day in Africa would fill my mind, and I would think "If I could capture that one scene it would begin to explain all the rest..." and a few sentences would appear, clumsy and awkward, not unlike the handful of phrases in halting Swahili that I managed -- after much effort -- to master by the end of the trip. It was discouraging to have so much to say and to lack the skill to say it.
But I also knew that, like speaking Swahili, writing about the trip wouldn't happen unless I accepted the risk of embarrassment and failure. What I really needed was to get to the point where the need to describe our journey overcame the certainty that I would never be able to capture it all in anything like the richness it deserved.
I finally reached that point yesterday morning. After spending an hour shoveling snow, I came inside and found an email from Rob, our Tanzanian guide during the trip. We had sent him several emails, as well as pictures of all the snow we had in Newton (this was two storms ago), but hadn't heard back from him for a while. In his email, he apologized for the long delay in responding. He had been ill for a couple of weeks with typhoid fever, but was feeling much better now, and was about to set out on another expedition. He wished us well with the snow (but made sure we knew that it was a perfect 80 degrees in Arusha). At that moment it suddenly occurred to me that I'd like to go back to Tanzania some day, and with that thought, I decided I was ready to begin to write about my FIRST trip to Africa...
Running Log, 12/24/10 -- 3M in early AM, usual morning loop
Ann tells everyone that I hate to travel. I claim that this is an exaggeration, like saying that I hate Christmas or dinner parties... or any other endeavor that requires large amounts of planning, social negotiation, and worrying about food. The truth is that whatever the challenges, once I'm in the middle of these activities, I do fine and I generally enjoy myself, but the period leading up to them makes me anxious; I have to fight the urge to head for the hills. Knowing this about me, Ann was very delicate in approaching the idea of a trip to Africa.
The idea of the trip really became concrete when Joni's six-month internship working for a foreign aid organization in Zambia was extended to twelve months. Ann and I both thought that not seeing Joni for a whole year would be a sorry thing, and both of us -- but Ann especially -- had always wanted to see the countries where Joni had spent so much time. A plan began to take shape to visit Joni in Tanzania over Christmas vacation. We could combine Christmas, New year's Eve, and Joni's birthday in one trip, visit her friends in Tanzania, and go on a safari through some of the most spectacular wildlife parks in the world.
But knowing how anxious I get planning something as tame as a weekend on the Cape, Ann let me gradually get used to the idea, making it clear that I didn't have to travel with her to Tanzania. It would be perfectly fine if I just wanted to stay home and take care of the house and the pets, make sure the pipes didn't freeze, and watch football on TV. Her gambit worked perfectly. After maintaining my neutrality about the trip for months while Ann tackled all the research and planning, all the agonizing about dates and itineraries, with the deadline for buying tickets looming, I announced that of COURSE I wanted to come along.
When discussing logistics, one issue that always lurked was the limited opportunities for running while we were in Tanzania. I felt that running would be an important anchor for me in this strange world, but the opportunities would, of course, be limited. It was also a cruel coincidence that we were scheduled to leave ONE DAY before I was hoping to finish my personal project of running for 365 days in a row. In conversations with Ann and in emails to Joni, I tried to inquire gently about the topic while downplaying the whole running streak thing. I understood that running was not the priority. But deep down, I didn't want the streak to go without an attempt on my part to keep it up. I packed running shoes, shorts, and plenty of socks. No reason not to keep my options open.
In many ways, I had expected that first day of the trip to be the one most likely to kill the streak. Our flight left at 7:20 a.m. on December 24th, which meant we needed to be at the airport by 5:45 a.m.. After a short flight to Washington-Dulles, we would have a layover of nearly three hours, and I figured I could try to get in twenty minutes of running in the airport in Washington.
But that scenario became unnecessary when I found myself wide awake in the very early morning hours of December 24th, long before any signs of dawn appeared in the night sky. I had set the alarm for 4:55, but found myself staring at the clock an hour before that. After a few minutes of indecision, I slid out from under the covers and began pulling on the winter running gear that I had stacked in a neat pile on the dresser, just in case.
Outside, the cold stung my face, but after several weeks of running in these temperatures, I was used to the feeling. I tried not to hurry, even though I knew that when I got back to the house, I wouldn't have much time to shower, eat, and take care of the last little details before the taxi came. I tried to enjoy these last few moments of peace and solitude, while quietly preparing myself for the long journey ahead and for whatever obstacles lay in store for us.
My insomnia that morning let me run first and then take a shower in my own bathroom. (I would come to appreciate showers in a new way on the trip.) I was also able to have a bowl of cereal without worrying about the status of the milk that I poured over it. As I enjoyed this last meal at home, I reflected that I was now one day away from completing my full year of running. If all went according to plan, I'd be running again twenty-four hours later in Arusha, the city in Tanzania where we would be meeting Joni.
As we got into the taxi, it was still dark, with only the faintest signs of blue beginning to appear in the East. I tried to imagine arriving in a place where it was 80 degrees every day. I tried to imagine how I would feel running there, and I thought about the last thing Joni had written to me in response to my questions about it:
"...I am sure you will have no trouble running in Arusha - so long as you don't mind people pointing and staring at you a bit - and yelling Mzungu at you. You also may have some young kids run along with you for a while..."
So if I wanted to continue my streak, I would have to overcome one of my greatest fears -- the fear of being conspicuous. It was one thing to sneak out in my own Newton neighborhood for an anonymous early morning run with no one around; it would be a very different thing to arrive in a strange country on Christmas afternoon and immediately hold my own one-man parade in front of throngs of curious and amused Tanzanians. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it without help...
NEXT: Christmas in Arusha
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