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Friends United
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May/June 2007
Running in Kenya
By John Norris
My nearly 30 years of running every day has evolved into an early morning time of reflection and communion with God. In the quiet of the morning, cold or warm, dark or light, I wake up with the movement and contemplation. I ask God for insight and direction for the day ahead and to fill me with His Spirit. After praises and thanksgiving and asking for forgiveness, I pray for others. This can happen because my running routes are known and repetitious.
Being in Kenya with the general board group in February 2007, I had to find new routes. One was the red clay track at the Y or University, a short jog from the United Kenya Club, our overnight stay in Nairobi. I remembered it from the triennial of 2002 and made my way there at dawn on Sunday morning. My goal was 20 laps on the 400 meter track, but I found I was not alone. Several Kenyans were already there stretching and doing laps. Several gathered on the short bleachers watching. I did a couple of fast laps with a young guy. Then I realized the Kenyans were running only short distances and hitting around a soccer ball. When they pulled off their warm up clothes I saw they had team uniforms and were getting ready for a soccer game.
St Anne’s Guest House at Kisumu the next morning was on a winding dirt street filled with ponding water and I was not sure where to go on my run. Soon I came to a blacktopped street and entered morning traffic. Walkers, bicycles, taxi vans and cars were all moving and I was busy greeting those I could make eye contact with. Good morning, good morning Sir, good morning to you, how are you, fine, were exchanges back and forth. Even though it was still the first light of the day, children were off to school. I reversed my route and, with the help of some signs and landmarks, made it back to the guest house compound gate.
Arriving after dark to Bishop Stam Pastoral Centre near Kakamega made me question where I would run the next morning but I jogged down to the highway (actually a blacktop with pot holes and an occasional speed bump). There I saw a clay dirt narrow road and a sign for a Friends Church so I went that direction. The road was not level or smooth or wide but with some attention I was able to plod along. Here the morning traffic was children walking to school and women with plastic jugs getting water. They came from nearby little houses with metal roofs. In about a mile or so I came to a bend in the road and a school ( I found out later this was a Friends School and the Friends Church). Several kids were already there and I was quite a sight to them as I ran by. After another mile or so I came to a blacktopped road and ran past more kids going to school. Some kids even ran with me. Just past the school my 30 minutes were up so I reversed my direction and ran back. When the board went out for the day in the bus I saw that the school where I turned around was just up the road a mile or so. I had made a large U on the dirt road!
Most other mornings I ran down the side of the highway past this school and closer to Kakamega. The last mile or two before the turnaround was a blacktopped strip beside the highway for bicycle traffic and particularly for the boda bodas (bicycle taxis). I liked running on the blacktop so I competed with the boda bodas while trying to stay out of the way of the taxi vans that all seemed to be driving on the wrong side of the road. I was able to greet the bicyclers and passengers who were often looking back at me. It was a time too busy to pray and contemplate God but I realized I was in communion with God as I gave the good morning greeting to so many boys and girls, men and women and the boda-bodas.
John Norris is an insurance agent and member of Amboy Friends, Indiana Yearly Meeting. He currently serves as treasurer of FUM and on FUM general board committees: executive, finance, trustees, FEC and pension.