Before I share with you my latest adventures, I would like to say that en light of the last few weeks events here in Nairobi, there might have been a few worried or aghast responses from some of you as to how I am reacting and handling certain situations. I want you all to know that I am being very careful and taking as many precautions that I can, but 90% of these stories happen without my having any control of the events and often times then not, the stories/experiences end with a story and laughter one, because this is not the US, and two, because this is not how I normally would have reacted but because I'm here, all I can do is enjoy the ride.
Please know that I do have some very important connections here so that if anything does happen, I have an Ace up my sleeve. And the people in the office and my friends here are all helping look out for me and help me be aware of what is happening on the ground.
Ok so now, story time. Two Saturday's ago I found out that one of my friends who graduated with my aunt from Messiah College, was in town. She ended up calling me and asking me if I was running in the Nairobi Marathon the following week. I hadn't really given it any thought since I hadn't started getting back into the routine of running long distances, but I figured that it was a chance of a lifetime. So I got up and ran a 10k the next morning just to see if I could handle the distance. I finished in a pretty good time and thought what the heck. So I trained for one week and ran the 10k in Nairobi's Standard Charter Marathon this past Sunday. It was unlike any competition I had ever been a part of.
Firstly, they closed down all the major roads in Nairobi, which in itself is a huge accomplishment because those roads literally see probably around one million cars a day. Ridiculous. Then 15,000 people registered to compete in the event along with another 5,000 who didn't register but ended up competing. As Toni and I were hanging around the starting line, we noticed that there were little five and six year old kids standing with their mom or dad with a number for the half marathon or 10k. Maybe this is just me, but when you sign up to compete in a race, you're expecting that you're going to finish. You've probably done some training, maybe not, but your confident that you can do it. Well after the start of the race, I saw that was not the case for probably 80 to 90% of the people in this race. I shared this thought with my Kenyan friends and they told me that it was a charity event and not so much as a race.
So as I'm running, within the first 100 yards people start to walk, crack jokes, and then the general public comes out of nowhere and adds another 5,000 people or so to congest the road. I am in no way saying that this race was a disaster and that I hated this experience, but it was so interesting to see those who just came out to enjoy the closed streets of Nairobi, have fun with the family, and then see those who were so competitive and were cheating by going underneath the banners and cut the race short for themselves. I will say that it was fun to enjoy those roads being so open and having the opportunity to run on them because they usually cause me so much headaches, like last weeks 5 hour jam.
My second first was the day after the race, my friend was driving me home and as we're coming out of a major round about, a city bus refuses to let us overtake him and in slow motion I see this bus completely shatter our side mirror. Nothing really happened to the bus other than a foot long scratch, but that bus had definitely seen better days. I ended up getting a traffic officer to help us, but she refused to see our side of the story and give the bus driver the ok and telling us that it was our fault. I got her to admit that the bus hit us, which I thought was all you needed to prove, but she then said that because we didn't maintain our lane that we were at fault. HUH?! Anyways, we got our Kenyan mom on the phone and as soon as she talked to the police lady she completely changed her attitude towards us. She told us to go on and that everything would be taken care of.
Well... we started to leave, but then she hollered at me to come talk with the bus driver because he had gained the confidence that he could get us to bribe him because she had said that it was our fault. After a long debate of how it was scratch and not a dent and his passengers literally about to beat him up because it was obvious that he was trying to play us, they left and we were able to carry on with a side mirror hanging in a plastic bag on the side of the car.
Every day it's hard not to see how God has his hands on me and is protecting me from harm, from the daily corruption that happens, and giving me grace and providing for my every need. Tomorrow I will be participating in my second wedding and first Kenyan wedding. It should be another adventure and I will definitely let you know how it goes. Until then... Stay classy and may He provide your daily bread.
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