January 15th --Running

This morning I went running for the first time in MK. I woke up around 5:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I had wanted to go running for a while, and so I thought, OK, now’s the time. It was dark outside and the sun had a good 30 minutes before it would even be close enough provide dawn. I started out and ran by the well, where I could make out only the vague forms of two women and a child drawing water. I took the path towards the mountain, a sandy path, which makes me feel right at home, running on sand. I had only been a few hundred yards on this path past the outskirts of the village before, so it was all an exploration. I rounded the mountain and the path came upon a dry river bed, all white sand. I’m sure in the rainy season this is actually quite a large river, which is exciting to think about seeing in half a year. There were no people about really, and the sounds of bees in the trees overhead and many many different bird sounds. The light of the moon was just enough to make out the difference in color between the white sand path and the fields of corn and trees to either side. Across the river bed I could see two fires of a camp Mborroro/Peul herders and the shapes of their white cattle. On either side of the path and river bed mountains rose up. I ran for 45 minutes or so and gradually dawn brought light. When it was very light, before sunrise, I was on the other side mountain, and came upon a set of little huts. I wasn’t sure if it was a Peul campment, and as I hadn’t done protocol (introducing myself) with any of the Peul chiefs I decided I’d better stop instead of running through the village. But there was one Peul in the field with his cows and he saw me approaching before I had stopped. We both stopped, looked at each other from a distance of 200 m or so. And then I was gifted with a simple conversation.
Him: A don wadda sport? Are you excercising? (Doing the sport)
Me: Oho mi don dogga. Yes. I’m running
Him: Ha toy? Where
Me. Mi don dogga tan. I’m just running.
Him: A don walla ha Sanguere Paul? Do you stay/ Are you from Sanguere Paul?
Me: Oho, saare am ha Mafa Kilda. Yes, my house is in Mafa Kilda.
Hado wouro ma? Is this your village?
Him: (something I couldn’t make out) Oho (gesturing towards the houses)
A pause of a minute or so
Me: Mi loran. I will return, (now).

And then I left.
It was quite amazing actually…the whole situation, the place, the time of day, the two of us from two completely different worlds and cultures. It’s something to have such an innocent and simple conversation. To have such an exchange which is not cluttered with words, but acknowledges You are here and I am here and we both know that and are both alive and talking to each other.

On the way back, I stopped to climb one of the mountains, looking for a cave. The mountains are very rocky and full of little caves. I got up to what I thought was one, to find it was more just a crevice, so I sat high on a rock overlooking the river valley, surrounded on all sides by mountain. It was like a bowl through which the river runs right through the middle. From my vantage point, there were no people, no buildings, no power lines, nothing but the mountains. And as such, it could have been the year 2009 or 1000 years ago. I just sat there, thinking and watching, accompanied by bees and bird sounds, until the sun rose high enough to light up first the tip of the next door hill, then the more of it, then more of it, golden sunlight creeping down the mountain and filling the valley of corn fields. With that I headed back. How beautiful to run one direction in the dark, and to run back in the light, seeing everything for the first time. Oh so this is what the river bank looks like! Oh here’s a little hut I missed. I passed the herders and their cows as well, whose fires I had seen on the way out, and we exchanged a few sentences as I ran by and they sat on the path talking. And as I ran back, I passed women and men heading out to their fields for the morning, hoes in hand. Finally making it back to my house around 7:30am, ready to get on with the day, but in such a better mental and heart state.