Lilongwe Half-Marathon

John and I ran in the Lilongwe half-marathon (21 KM) last Sunday. Wow... what a run. It really was great to do something that was so "normal" to us, but in such an incredibly different setting. It started at 6:00 am, but should have started at 5 -- man, it was hot! We showed up at 5:45 and pinned on our numbers (mine was a piece of cloth with the number written with marker).There was a hand drawn map posted at the starting line that everyone was studying -- leading me to believe that there were probably going to be no course markers. I was determined to run at any pace necessary in order to not run by myself (for fear of getting lost). I was pleasantly surprised when I saw someone standing at the first turn pointing to the left. I finally decided that as long as I didn't see anyone indicating otherwise, I was to just keep straight. There was definitely no sort of traffic control. Thankfully, I couldn't get my i-pod to work (except for a story about holocaust survivors on the radio - really helps you get a good pace going) - I needed both ears to listen for cars coming up behind me. Remember that drivers here are used to dodging people walking/biking down the side of the road, so they feel perfectly comfortable driving within centimeters of a pedestrian. Part of the course took us down a dirt road surrounded by fields of soon-to-be-planted maize as far as the eye could see. I did, actually, end up running by myself during this portion of the race (I could see one guy running far up ahead) and it was amazing. Never have I met (and ran right in between) three women carrying "ginormous" (as Ford says) bundles of firewood on their heads and watched people hoeing their fields. We passed little kids that got a big kick out of us, ran past the gates to the president's house, up more stinking hills than I care to count, and alongside some crazy guy yelling "I'm strong, I'm a soldier." The guy that I ran the last few miles with gave me great incentive not to let him get in front of me - he was a Malawian fella in every "scents" of the word - no Sure or Degree for this guy, no way. He was such a sweet guy and knew where we were (I hadn't a clue) and told me when we only had a few kilometers to go (music to my ears). They did have several water stations and a friend met us in a couple of places with bottles of Energade (Gatorade). I past one water table and someone said, "Well done, you are only the second azungu (foreign) woman to pass by so far. One woman was standing outside her house with a water hose and a tambourine. I don't know what the winning time was - it had to have been fast. The lead runners were in our sight for all of about 15 seconds - they were amazing. There are usually African runners in big races in the States. It was fun to run in a race where almost all the runners were African. Quite an experience.

A few randoms bits of info:

The rains have officially started and have given great relief to the heat. It basically rains once a day really hard and sounds incredible on our metal roof. Makes me wish I could take a nap every time. When the rain stops, the sky is full of giant flying termites, called 'ngombe' (pronounced 'en-GOOM-bee'). Malawians eat them - either right out of the sky or fried with a little salt. This morning there was a constant stream of people walking back behind our house with bowls to collect them from the ground under a fluorescent light near our yard - there were thousands. We've learned the hard way not to leave any outside lights on or they will all fly into your house if you dare to open the door. Martha cooked some today and all the children tried them. Sam and Ruthie promptly spit them out, while Ford and Alice Ann thought they were great. Ford claims that they taste like pretzels. I'll take his word for it.

Our guard brought the children a hedgehog the other night. He had seen us one night on a frog hunt, so remembered how much our children love creatures of all kinds. It was like a tiny porcupine - really kind of cute. It escaped from it's box during the night--so sorry, we have no pictures.

"International Day" at school last Friday. All the children dressed in costumes from their home countries and brought food from their country. The parents' went to school and had a big feast. The food was great - incredible to see food from so many different countries. And the children were precious - the Indian little girls were my favorite in their brightly colored dresses/wraps and hair up in a bun - so beautiful. Sam and Ford were Ole Miss and Auburn football players respectively. They loved distinguishing between American football and "soccer/football" here. Sam did have some sort of allergic reaction this afternoon (just rash/itching) - who knows what caused it - we have no idea what some of the things were that we ate. Ignorance is bliss, huh? It was all delicious, actually, with Ethiopian being at the top of our list.

Several points for prayer:

-- Praise God that Sam's malaria test last week came back negative.

-- Sam's teacher's husband had a brain aneurysm a few weeks ago and had to be flown to South Africa for treatment. He has made almost a full recovery and is doing great at home now. Mrs. Tricks returned to the classroom this week to a very excited class. Sam asked if he could go to school at 6 am (school starts at 7:15) to make sure that he was there when she got there to give her her 'welcome back' picture that he had drawn. The Lord truly spared him.

-- Martha's aunt died two weeks ago while walking home from her field and then her 5 year old niece died last week from falling into a well. Please pray for God's comfort for their family. Martha is a Christian, but I am not sure about other members of her family.

-- Continued prayer for another doctor to come. Friday was Dr. Mark Boersma's last day. Also, pray for their family as they head back to Louisiana in a couple of weeks.

-- For our family to look for ways to be a blessing to the students here and others that we have regular contact with.