Run and not grow weary. Pt I

Well, this past Sunday, I attempted to run the Kampala half-marathon. It was a little bit of a last minute thing that four of the interns signed up for, and needless to say, we didn’t really train much for it. Prior to the race, I think the longest I’d ever run in my life was about 13km last summer and in Uganda, the farthest that I’d managed to run was eight and a half. So going into the race, we figured that it’d would be interesting, and painful.

The run started at 7am, and we were supposed to show up at 6am to pick up our race numbers and an electronic chip that would accurately measure each runner’s times (I was pretty impressed with this little thing!). This meant waking up at 5:20 in order to have time shower quickly (more to wake myself up than anything else), and eat a quick breakfast before leaving the guesthouse at 5:40. This year, there were over 10,000 people registered to run in the event, the largest turnout in the five year history of the Kampala Marathon. This is the first half-marathon, or even the first organized race (outside of school events) that I’d ever run in, and it was a great experience. We all ended up finishing with relatively close together, though we lost Mike within the first ten minutes after he stopped to pee. The winner of the half marathon finished in an hour and three minutes, less than half the time that we clocked … and that’s all I’ll say about our speed…=p Oh well, it gives us something to shoot for next time around.

I took a sweet picture on Naomi’s camera that I’ll post when I get if from her, in the meantime, here’s a generic picture of the marathon. Edit: Posted at top, the sweetest ad ever!

Oh yea, pretty cool thing that happened at the race, or rather, before the race, (as we were lining up in the nearby coffee shop for a quick last minute restroom stop), I ran into the entire staff from the EMI East Africa office! Out of the nearly 11,000 people that must have been milling about just before the race, I can’t believe that I was able to run into, and recognize them (especially since I’d never actually met any of them before, I’d just seen a couple of the staff before at last year’s EMI Conference of Hope)! Anyway, I’m hoping to get the chance to visit their office sometime soon, maybe even next weekend.

Also on Sunday morning, but on a more somber note, Bern and Nancy left to fly back to Vancouver. Bern, our senior engineer, had been on his way to Canada House from camp on Friday afternoon to meet me and Mike to review the designs that we’d put together when he felt something wrong with his eye. He went to an eye doctor right away, who diagnosed it as a detached retina. After a second diagnosis with a more experienced doctor, it was determined that one of his eyes was in the first stages of a detached retina. So, after some serious deliberation with the doctors here in Uganda and back home in Canada, Bern and Nancy decided that it was best that they return to Canada to carry out any required treatment. If surgery is needed, there is a standard six week recovery period which Bern may be able to do in Uganda (to be decided when they cross that bridge) and if not, Bern and Nancy could be back in Uganda in a couple of weeks. However, in the meantime, please pray for them as they deal with this unexpected and potentially serious issue. On a positive note, it was very encouraging to see the capacity of the Ugandan medical staff here as they very competently and efficiently helped Bern and Nancy through the diagnosis and decision making stage. Much is said about the state of the health care services and personnel here in Uganda, most of it not very flattering; however, Bern and Nancy were impressed by the level of service that they received. The main reason that they had to return to Canada was because the doctor who has the knowledge to complete the necessary procedure is out of the country until Friday, and it would be best for Bern to receive further attention as soon as possible.