I can see now that this team and the practices we have teach me a lot about life. Sometimes things can get hard—really, really hard—but your dedication and enthusiasm can keep you going. There are always moments in the race when you are tired and can’t move one more step. But you do, and you keep yourself going because there is a prize at the end. You keep running.
It’s the same thing in life. Like in the marathon training, when things get hard, you keep going.
Over the years I have seen visitors come to Imani with cameras, and I have always wanted to touch one. I would watch them take pictures or take video, and I would dream of one day holding that machine.
Then one day Lara is just wandering around Imani filming, and I decide to ask. Lara and Claire and I are close friends by now, and we talk and laugh every day. Curious, like any boy curious about a camera, I ask Lara about it. She starts explaining the camera to me, its functions, and what it does. Then, at last, she asks me if I want to touch it.
I cannot believe my ears and look at her with confusion. “Are you serious?” Then I put my hands together to hold the camera.
She tells me one thing: “Take care of it; it’s my baby.” I assure her that I will, and she puts the camera in my hands.
As she gives me the camera, I feel a strange kind of joy. Like the joy you feel when your team makes a goal in overtime or when the shot just barely enters the hoop. That kind of joy.
I take the camera and start looking through it, and it’s as if I can see the world with whole new eyes.
There aren’t words to describe all my feelings in that moment, and why the camera is so important to me. To this day I’m not sure how crazy Lara must have been to let me use it, but she did. From then on, I keep waiting for the next moment I can touch a camera again.
After many months of Claire and Lara living at Imani, their work begins to be recognized all over the world. We are told that some special writers from a magazine called Runner’s World are coming to Imani for a week to do some interviews and to take pictures of the children training with Hope Runs. Apparently, people in other places think that Claire and Lara are doing an awesome thing in coming to an orphanage and giving us opportunities to engage in something extracurricular like running.
We are asked to go for a run one day with our shoes on so that the cameraman can take pictures. When we go out on the road, I find out that some people don’t have their shoes on and are still running barefoot. Years later I see one of the pictures taken that day of one of the kids who wasn’t wearing shoes—it is an awesome photo, but I’m not sure it was what Runner’s World expected! That day we all run the regular 5K loop as we normally do, and the cameraman takes photos along the way.
When we all return to the orphanage, Claire and Lara call me and my friend Mwaniki aside. They tell us we are going to do some more photos, just the four of us, so this time we all get into the cameraman’s car and drive along the 5K loop. This is the first time I’ve ever been in someone’s personal car—I had been in a few minibuses before, like when I went for the circumcision on that bumpy road—and I sit in the backseat, smiling to myself and thinking, I’m in a real car!
The cameraman has Lara and Claire do some modeling, and I think they look very beautiful and better than they normally look when we run! Then he starts taking pictures of Mwaniki and me as well.
When we come back, I am excited and start talking to the other students about it, but then I see they are not happy at all. Some are very mad at us, and I realize they are jealous that Mwaniki and I were especially invited to go take more photos, which I did not think of beforehand. Of all the students in the program, we were called out by Claire and Lara. We say to them we were chosen because we had been so diligent in our running, and this is true. But I know in my heart we have a special relationship, and soon people will start to see that.
Finally, the month comes for the big marathon, which we are running at a place called the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy with thousands of other people from different countries. We have a few weeks left, and everyone is really enthusiastic and ready for the race.
Even Claire and Lara are excited, and when I talk to them, I see their eyes are full of happiness. They know the running program has gone well, many students have improved their times, and many little kids who aren’t running the marathon have learned to like running. We have also become close friends, which makes me glad, because there was a time when I had been very mad at Claire and hadn’t wanted anything to do with her! Now I often knock on the door of their apartment when I need advice, or want to talk about something, or need help with chemistry or writing, or anytime, really. And, of course, when something interesting is happening and I need to ask for the video camera to tape it!
The Tuesday a few weeks before the marathon, there is a soft rain falling, and Claire and Lara tell us we have to be at practice on time because there is a big announcement. Everyone is excited because we know it has to do with the Lewa Marathon, and we can’t wait to hear what it is. I get there early and have on my nice shoes, running shorts, and shirt. Hezron is with me at the time, and when we arrive, Claire and Lara seem hesitant to tell us anything. I can sense something is wrong, and finally, they tell us that it looks like some of us will not be able to run the marathon.
We cannot believe our ears. What!? This news seems impossible to us. Haven’t we all been practicing for months to go to this amazing event? Going to the marathon means a lot to us. Most of all, I think, because it is a chance to travel—to get out of our enclosed orphanage life and the small village and to see a bit of Kenya. The Lewa Marathon is the chance to do that.
Lara and Claire have to explain the whole story, and I can see it saddens them. It turns out that anyone younger than seventeen years old will no longer be able to participate due to the rules of the race. This kills me, because Hezron and I are part of that age group. We simply cannot believe it. After all our hard work, after months of practice, we have been told we cannot participate.
We are angry, and we go back to the dormitory and stay there that night. We don’t go up to the study hall and we don’t talk to anyone; we just keep saying the same thing over and over to each other: “This is not fair.”
The next day Claire brings the few of us together who can no longer run and says she is very sorry about what has happened, but we will definitely still go to the race to spectate.
Then we realize, “Wait! This is perfect! We’re going to go for a trip, but we don’t have to run and exhaust ourselves!” We are immediately happy again and can’t wait for the race.
The night before the race, the runners leave to make the long drive. They are staying overnight at a hostel near the race grounds so that they can get to the starting line early in the morning. The rest of us kids from Imani are leaving early the next day with Matron and Cucu and arriving a couple hours later.
During that night’s Friday worship, we ask God for safe travels for all. We pray that the runners will be safe in their hostel and get sleep so they can start the run on the right foot.
At 4:30 a.m. that Sunday, Hezron wakes me up to get ready to go to the marathon. We have breakfast, and soon everyone is ready to climb on the enormous bus. The bus is beautiful, and from the moment we step on board I know this is going to be a truly amazing experience. As the gates of Imani open and we pass through, I gaze out. I’ve walked on that same road so many times but have never really gotten a sense of the area and the surrounding community. As we leave the village and then Nyeri town and head out on the open road all the way around Mount Kenya, I cannot cease to see the wonders of this beautiful place.
We travel for more than six hours, passing amazingly different, adventurous landscapes. Cucu and Matron have joined us to make sure we are safe and well, and we love having them there to support us.
When we arrive at Lewa, I see that it is a nice morning for a race. It is cool and cloudy with a nice breeze. I imagine how grateful the runners are for the weather, since it is nor
mally such a hot place with lots of dust, and it hasn’t rained in a long while.
I soon notice that there are a lot of people from the Masai tribe in Lewa. This is new for me, because back in Nyeri there are almost none. That said, people always think my middle name, Ikua, is a Masai name, since it sounds so unusual for a Kikuyu name. I have heard so many people say I must secretly be Masai that I had started to believe it, and I am glad to see “my people” all around, selling food and water. I also see some mzungus, and then I start to see people from other cultures entirely. It is amazing to think that everyone is here for this one event.
Hezron and I immediately start walking around, making friends. When people speak English, we speak English. When people speak Swahili, we speak Swahili. At some point I lose Hezron in the mountain of faces, and as I walk around alone, I start making friends with some of the Masai who live in the area and herd cattle.
I soon wander back to the area where all the other kids from the orphanage are watching the race, waiting for people we know to cross the finish line so we can cheer for them. I see a television camera for a national news station pointed toward me, and I am really happy to know we’ll be on TV! I didn’t realize I had been standing right in front of the place where the world-record holders are finishing the marathon. They run so fast for so long, I simply cannot believe my eyes.
I start cheering for anyone I see finishing while I wait, so I am really thrilled when finally some people from Imani start crossing the line. At first it is all boys. I see Wilson and then Ewoi both pushing their hardest. We all shout and scream when they pass through, and I think about what a great thing it is to see my friends from the orphanage in an international race like this. I shout so, so loud.
I eat a delicious sandwich for lunch, and then we go back on the bus to start our journey back to Imani. The one day we have been away feels so long. As we are driving back, I see the scenes of the day in my head, playing forward and backward and forward again. It is really like I am seeing them fresh, not like I have ever seen them before.
Claire
Chapter 8
It was inevitable, of course, that Lara would get sick. When important things happened to Lara, she got fevers. The night before we graduated from Stanford, she was feverish in her parents’ hotel room, shivering under weighty down blankets.
“Maybe it’s time to take an aspirin,” I suggested.
“Humph,” she responded, part delirious, part defiant. Lara, now almost a doctor, hates taking medicine.
In Kenya, the conditions in the weeks leading up to the marathon prove optimal for a soaring fever. Daily disasters increase tenfold, and every few minutes some small child or marathon-training teen knocks on our door with a different impending crisis. The children, not knowing what this marathon entails or if we may disappear as soon as it is over like all the other white people who come, lose all sense of perspective with their problems. Nothing is too small or too large for our immediate intervention. We complain hourly that we even lack the time to develop an appropriate triage system for what has clearly become a failure of management.
Small children coming into the kitchen to fight over who can take our compost to the cows becomes one of many loud interruptions to our tenuous conference calls with London about thousands of dollars in marathon fees. From the children’s transportation to their accommodations to their safety, the weight of the responsibility seems ready to topple us.
And yet the children have their priorities. Every five minutes or so during any relatively free time the children have, they knock on our door.
One day we hear the familiar knock for the umpteenth time.
“They want more paper,” Lara correctly assesses. Ever since we started providing kids with paper to write letters to their US prayer partners, we haven’t had a moment of peace. Our supplies are dwindling, and so is our patience. All day and all night they want paper.
I get up and crack the front door.
“Give me paper,” Mercy says in her trademark tubercular rasp. Mercy was the first child in the orphanage known to be sick with HIV/AIDS and has been getting steadily healthier in the year since she arrived, but she is still very small for her age. Everyone treats her like a baby sister, carrying her everywhere unnecessarily and doting on her to no end.
I begin the bargaining. “We can’t give you paper, Mercy. You never wrote a letter. We only give paper to people who write letters.”
“Here is letter.”
“This is not your letter, Mercy. Someone else wrote this.”
“Here is letter two.”
“This is not your letter either, Mercy. Go write your own letter on your own piece of paper.”
Momentarily silenced, she retreats. Ten minutes later she’s back, knocking.
“Give me paper.”
“Mercy,” I reason, “you are not writing letters. Mercy, they are using you for paper.”
She stares at me blankly, blinking her big brown eyes.
“We cannot give you paper,” I assert.
“Letter for Mary?” she tries.
“Which Mary?” I test her.
“Mary Waithera.”
I snort. “We already gave Mary Waithera letter paper today.”
She tries again. “Mary Wanguru.”
“Tell her I gave all the Marys paper today!” Lara yells from the other room.
“Letter?”
“One letter paper per day per person, Mercy,” I say, closing the door.
“Give me paper.”
“Goodbye, Mercy.”
Twenty minutes later she’s back, knocking plaintively.
“Mercy, I am not answering the door!” I say loudly.
“Paper. Give me paper.”
“Go away, Mercy.”
Her fingers are under the door now, grasping the air.
“Letter?”
In contrast to Mercy, Little Mary—whom we have taken to calling Chula, or frog in Swahili—has mastered the actual art of letter writing. (Due to Kenyans’ transposing of the l and r sounds, the kids believe Lara is written Roola and Claire is Crayol. By the same token, it is not until years later that we learn frog in Swahili is actually spelled chura.) When Lara’s parents were in Kenya the month before, Mary had written them a letter.
Dear Roola Mother and Father,
I miss you I pray for you. I am Mary Waithera and I am 9 years old.
I am in Standard 2 and I live at Imani Children’s Home.
I am a frog.
I miss you I pray for you,
Mary
We were notably impressed.
“You are Chula now,” we told her.
“Like Celtel?” she said.
At the time, the most useless technician in the world, from the phone company Celtel, was at Imani every other day. Much like the plumber at Imani, who is a friend of the reverend and thus cannot be fired, the Celtel employee’s only apparent strength was in reliably disabling all electrical outlets and internet connections. He is also named Chula.
“Yes, Mary, like Celtel.”
One day Mary can’t believe it when I tell her Lara is napping because she is sick. “Roola is sleeping? For running?”
“Come look, Chula,” I say. I take Mary into Lara’s room, where it is dark, and I tell her to sit on the bed. The bed moves. She squeals.
“It is Roola!”
As we near the marathon, the training runs become even more grueling. The little children who are too small to run long distances have the important job of being cheerers, which means they are tasked with passing out water and snacks. They never fail to consume more than they distribute. A marathon training run of up to eighteen or twenty miles means up to six loops on the road around the orphanage, giving us an effective cheering station in front of the orphanage that allows these little kids to be kept safe by the home and yet also be passed by the runners many times. The jobs for manning the cheering station are seen as desperately important. Usually Edwin, nine, rules the gaggle
of other nine-year-olds as a benevolent but patronizing snack station overlord.
After getting water for the runners in buckets and borrowing a number of brown plastic cups from the kitchen, the cheerers also have the duty of ensuring that the mzungu water is kept separately in the mzungu water bottles. It never goes without comment that the poor mzungus are so pathetic that they cannot drink African water.
“Special water!” Edwin yells when we pass, pointing out the particular bottles just for “Roola” and “Crayol.”
In reality, we had to campaign long and hard to make the runners drink water in the beginning. They told us if you were hot from running and drank cool water you would die, then looked at us like we were idiots when we expressed skepticism. We even brought in a famous Kenyan runner who was from the area for a motivational talk, in which we urged him to center on the importance of drinking water. It didn’t work. Eventually, as training runs grew longer, physiology won out and the runners started to drink. Barely.
Things have progressed, and now the runners frequently inform us that water is second rate, and they all are convinced that true runners only drink glucose, a sugary electrolyte drink. But it is overpriced at the Indian supermarket, so I found a homemade energy drink recipe online on a day that Chula from Celtel wasn’t working. The recipe consisted of food coloring, tea, salt, and sugar, so I brought some of the cheerers in the kitchen before the long training run, and we mixed up buckets of the purple stuff along with a garbage bag full of “popcorns.” The cheerers tasted the drink in the kitchen and provided feedback.
“It is like the dirt.”
For children with a massive sweet tooth and no access to sugar, this was a statement.
“That’s the foulest thing I’ve ever had in my life,” Lara offered. I gave it to Sammy, and he agreed, making exaggerated retching noises.
Hope Runs Page 8
