running to stand still

So I completely failed to write about the crazy trip home on Saturday. After waking up at 5, heading to the airport at 6, and waiting in line until after 7:30 to check in bags for an 8:30 flight (This is normal for Kenya Airways, although when I saw Think Tank Jason in line for his flight to Lusaka, he told me he had actually missed a flight due to their unbelievably poor service.). Miraculously, my bags made it to Kigali on the same flight and the three-hour bus ride back to Congo. The bus ride was long and painful (There are bruises on my kneecaps!) and featured a two-hour discussion of Congolese politics, complete with accusations that a Kinyarwanda speaker wasn't "really Congolese." This election is going to go great.

On the flight, I was seated next to a guy from Portugal. After establishing exactly how little good those Portuguese classes did after all, we talked about his travels (Rwanda is his 93rd country to visit), George W. Bush (that's right, I'm from Texas), his upcoming trip to Vegas, and he and his friend's weekend jaunt to Rwanda. That's right. Rwanda. For the weekend. They left Lisbon on Friday, flew to Amsterdam, then overnight to Nairobi, then on to Kigali on Saturday morning, with the whole thing in reverse on Monday. Seems his friend was invited to run in the second annual Kigali International Peace Marathon on Sunday, so they thought, "why not?"

Now. Several of my friends have trained for and run marathons for reasons ranging from supporting a good cause to personal achievement to just plain pride. The Librarian, The Intrepid Reporter, Laura Prime, Leah the Magnificent, the Dad, and the D.A. have all taken a shot at it, and that's great. It's not something I'm going to choose to do, but, hey, if you want to give it a go, I'll make a donation, cheer you on, and wait with Gatorade and goo at mile marker 23. I'm glad to volunteer at whatever-we're-calling-the-Austin-marathon-this-year, mostly because it's fun to see which of my colleagues are outpacing the others (for the record, Professor S was smoked by his grad student in 2004. Maybe that's why he left us for the big city.). I have nothing against marathons.

That said, you have to be completely insane to run a marathon in Kigali. Rwanda is nothing but mountains. Tall mountains. And deep valleys. Kigali's slightly less steep than the western part of the country, but still. The city is around 5,000 feet above sea level. Nobody steps off the plane without noticing how thin the air is. I've gotten used to the altitude in Goma (except on the volcano), but after a week in Nairobi, I really noticed it coming back last weekend. How you could run up and down those hills for 26.2 miles having been in the country (and at altitude) for less than 24 hours is beyond me. And completely crazy.