2006-07-30 - 11:40 p.m.

This entry is a couple months old. Sorry

Last October I was really into running. I had just come back from the U.S. where Jaimee Sparrow had given me 4 copies of Runner’s World and in Atar it was starting to cool off. I’ve wanted to train for a Marathon for about 2 years now, but the availability of such events here in West Africa makes the possibility of me achieving my goals somewhat minimal. I was beset with a dilemma. How to run a marathon in a land devoid of them? I could go solo, but where would be the official record? Who would believe me? Where was the competition? No, the only solution to running a marathon here was to organize one myself. But then I thought, ‘why stop there? This could be big. I could make this into a great event.’ I had already thought about organizing a trash cleanup in Atar. Why not link it with the marathon? The two events would occur on different days of the same weekend, and we could advertise them together as one big event. It seemed great. No problem. This would be a synch. The mayor’s office would surely pay for everything since we were helping them out. All I had to do was a little leg work and the rest would work itself out.

Thus began the project that would become the bane of my existence. As it is with anything here in Mauritania, nothing is easy. For seven months on end I ran back and forth between government buildings. For 8 hours every day for a week I sat in the governor’s office trying to get an audience, and all I wanted to do was pick up his trash. Everyone sent me somewhere else. No one was willing to commit without a monetary investment. Why couldn’t I pay for everything? ‘America has lots of money.’ Had I not already solicited the participation and assistance of 40+ volunteers I probably would have abandoned the project a thousand times over. As it were I stuck with it and nearly went insane. Here is a quick time line of events leading up to the event:

November: Letter goes out to Mayor and Governor announcing the intention to hold the event. My contact in the Mayor’s office tells me the mayor is very excited about the idea. I ask for a meeting with the mayor to get authorization and assistance only to find he is now out of town. I meet briefly with the adjoint mayor and explain my idea to only be told that only the mayor can authorize it. I meet with a guy who held a similar event with a previous volunteer. He promises me personal and monetary assistance.

December: Mayor is out of town most of the month. He comes to town for two days while I am in Nouakchott for Christmas.

January: Mayor still out of town. Met with Adjoint mayor again to be told he could not authorize the event. I abandon following protocol, and jump to the governor’s office to try to get permission from the top down. After waiting for 8 days straight outside his office, they finally let me in to see him at which time he tells me I need to get permission from the prefect. I spend one day in the prefect’s office without seeing him and abandon the project for 2 weeks. I first get support for the marathon by the town’s athletic director who says he will do all the legwork to get authorization. I subsequently lost this support for reasons beyond my comprehension. I only found out second hand from one of the director’s lackeys that he insisted I manage the entire event on my own.

February: Wait all month and finally get in to see the mayor during his 3-day visit to Atar. He approves the project and promises me 40 local volunteers to match ours, and four large dump trucks to take the trash out of town. I was almost bouncing off the walls when the meeting was through. The next few days I wait in the prefect’s office to see him. No go.

March: Again I go to the governor and have now made enough friends in the governor’s office to be able to schedule an appointment (something nearly impossible for anyone less than a tribal leader). Again, he tells me to go back to the Prefect, but this time says all I need to do is get him a letter, which he will pass to the governor and then approved. I type up the letter and leave it with the Prefects secretary. I still don’t know if we ever had official permission to hold the event. I pass by the mayor’s office every week to check on progress of planning. Nothing is happening, but I keep getting promises of preparation and am told to trust them.

April: Show time

I left the week before the event to go to my Close of Service conference. I left early to get back to Atar and prepare for the 40+ people coming to stay at my house. One of the best parts of this event was the help that all of my friends gave me. I asked my English class if anyone had sleeping mats I could borrow. One of my girls promised me 8 mats, but when the day came she showed up with 15 and pillows. My counterpart, Mariam lent me her hug party tent to put in the yard. My place was ready to go. I ordered food from a local friend.

The event was to start on Saturday with the clean up, and continue on Sunday with the marathon and party in Terjitt. On Thursday I went to the mayor’s office, but was told everything was being prepared, and I should come back Friday when they were less busy. On Friday I came back in. My contact in the mayor’s office was on his way out of town, but I caught him before he could leave. I put on the pressure to find out what the plan was. I quickly figured out nothing had been done. He immediately called a meeting with the adjoint mayor who called together a committee of people in the office to get this done. They told me to come back in the afternoon when we would coordinate the workers and trucks. On the way out the adjoint mayor said to me ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before.’ (Quick recap: I personally explained the project to him in November, and January as well as sending him an official written notification, and getting official authorization from his boss in February). I just smiled and walked out.

In the afternoon we all drove around town together recruiting people to pick up trash. After 2 hours or so we had finished and I could only cross my fingers to hope all of these people would show up the next day. I ran home to be there for the massive swarm of guests. They started trickling in at 8 and were all there by 10, Ari’s group being the last. I was so nervous thinking I had forgotten something that I was shaking most of the time. In the end it worked out and we all fit in my little house perfectly. I encouraged everyone to go to bed early because we had to meet at the mayor’s office at 7:30 the next day. I slept like a baby that night sharing my roof with 40 other people.

The next day I got up at 5 to get bread for everyone’s breakfast. I wondered what would happen that day. Would people show up or would it be the standard no show leaving us with nothing but a couple hundred garbage bags to fill and leave strewn around town. Everyone slowly got up and started getting ready for the day. At a quarter after 7 I started herding everyone out of the house. Making our way towards the office I was expecting a mutiny, all of the volunteers refusing to pick up trash because no Mauritanians had shown up. I held my breath as we rounded the corner. Ari gasped and squeezed my hand. Over 40 Mauritanian men and women were lined up ready to start work.

We divided up into three teams and headed out in different directions. Each group had around 75 garbage bags. It wasn’t hard to find trash so it took us little less than an hour to have them filled. There was a lot of waiting around afterward for the truck (we only had one). Finally it arrived and Caleb and I hopped in the back, emptying out bags into the truck bed and throwing them back out to volunteers. Around ten we started noticing that the number of Mauritanians with us was decreasing. By 11:00 it was ridiculously hot. It was then that the adjoint mayor’s car showed up. He started yelling at me that volunteers were going home, and I had to stop them. I knew where this was going, but I got in the car anyway. We drove up to Alison’s group and she told me what I already knew. It was hotter than heck and the Mauritanians were already gone. Alison and the adjoint mayor started yelling at each other. Finally I told Alison to just go home and let the adjoint mayor yell at me for a while. After he realized he wasn’t going to get his way he was really nice and started thanking me for the work we had done. People headed in at 12 and Caleb and I rode around on the truck for an extra hour getting the last of the bags. After it was crash time and we all cleaned ourselves up and lied around all afternoon. The town was beautiful, at least for the day.

I tried to get everyone to bed early as I was scared they would be exhausted for the run. The race itself was to start at 7, but I had to be up at 5 again to get bread for everyone and then drop people off along the course to handout water to the runners. My biggest fear was that the driver wouldn’t show up for the race when I wanted him. If we were at all late starting we would risk having people still out running during the noon day heat. I told him to be at the house by 5 expecting him to be an hour late. At 4 a.m. the next morning I jumped up as a truck approached. Ari looked at me and asked what was wrong. It was the driver and he was an hour early. I looked over the roof to see what he was doing. He didn’t get out of the car. I went downstairs only to find him sleeping in the cabin. He had shown up an hour early to sleep in front of the house so he was sure to be on time. I invited him inside to sleep on one of the mats, but he refused. I went back up the stairs, amazed, and got an extra hour sleep.

At 5 a.m. it was go time. I ran out, got bread, brought in the Bananas I purchased the day before, got the water crew together and loaded them into the car, dropped them all off along the course showing Matt Britton the stop points and giving him instructions on race protocol. He would be managing the car while the race was going. The car was to go around every 30 minutes and make sure everyone was ok. On the second turn it was to pick up the first water station and move it to the end. Once we arrived back at the starting line everyone was ready to go. Sadly, no Mauritanians showed up. I chalked it up to the fact there was no prize for the winner. Days before people said “why would anyone run without a prize. Do you expect them to do it for nothing?” People took their last bathroom breaks and then at 7:00 Tyler called the start of the race.

From the starting block I was in the lead. I had set up markers the previous night to guide people in the right direction. Additionally I had Luis and Todd stand at two crucial turning points. Pulling around the first turn Andrew was following me close by. We continued on together past the second turn, but he fell back well before the first water stop. Looking behind me around mile 3 I saw that I was followed closely by Jarad and further back by Jeff. I knew beating Jeff was in the bag. We had run together on numerous occasions and I could run laps around him. Jarad on the other hand was a different question. Arriving at the first water stop I had to yell to get their attention as I approached. I cried out that I wanted water and one of the candies I had left behind. I had to run backwards as Beth followed to hand me a candy, and tripped in the process hurting her leg. I bent down to help her up, but all she said was “GO GO” so I continued. Nearing the second water stop I could hear Jarad behind me trying to bridge the gap between us. Eventually he caught up and we made a truce to run it all together. At the half way point I had planted 20 Powerbars Caroline, a former Chinguetti PCV, had sent over for the race. Both Jarad and I took one and then continued on to the hardest part, the hill. The upside of the course was that it was almost all at a gradual decline. The down side was the enormous hill at the half way point. It took Jarad and I 10 minutes or more just to get to the top. From there on out it was a paved straight away. With five mile left to go, I started to hear my bowls call. I did my best to control them, but at the 10 mile marker I had to break off and relieve myself. Jarad went on and I was sure I had just handed over my first place trophy.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a faster b.m. In less than two minutes I was back on the road hot legging it to catch Jarad. I did have an unfair advantage in that I knew the course like the back of my hand so I could pace myself to catch him close enough to the end so I wouldn’t kill myself. I finally caught Jarad with less than half a mile left. We reached the last hill and Jarad was almost ready to call it quits, but I pushed him on. Knowing we were close I picked up the pace and he stayed with me. The finish line in sight I started to pick up speed. In the last 100 meters we were at a full sprint. Finishing in 1 hour and 49 minutes I took first place of my own half marathon. Finishing in 1 hour and 50 minutes Jarad came in second.

There was around 20 runners total and all but 2 finished the race. Many had only planned on running a 10k (half of a half marathon), but were pushed at the halfway point to keep going. Ari came in with a huge grin on her face and nearly punched me in the gut for making her run.

All and all I can point to this event as one biggest highlights of my PC service. On the day of the trash clean up Caleb and I were riding around hanging onto the side of the truck like a coupled of seasoned trash men. It finally hit me that I had reached the culmination of my months of work. I looked back at him and said, “I did this.” He smiled back and said, “Yeah, it’s pretty cool man.”

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