Are you watching this year’s Love4Gambia run unfold thinking “wow, this is amazing, I’d like to do that too?” Because if so, you’re in luck! NSGA will be proud to have runner(s) travel to The Gambia for Love4Gambia version 4.0 in the summer of 2014.
We look for runners who have a lengthy running background that includes successful completion of, at minimum, one marathon training cycle and race. The road to Banjul is 427km long and we need to ensure that a runner can make it.
Jenn, Spider and Kebba, 2013
Our official call for runners will occur in September, 2013. Dates will be finalized when our runner(s) are confirmed but must be scheduled around Ramadan.
Although we have recruited one runner per year for the past two years, we could accommodate more than one runner provided that multiple runners are a good fit for each other.
This run and the money raised by it support the health, education and human rights activities of NSGA in The Gambia. A runner will be asked to raise $5000 for NSGA along with money to cover their travel expenses, food and water totaling approximately $3500. Fundraised donations > $20 are eligible for tax receipts, including individual (excluding the runner) donations towards travel expenses.
The NSGA Gambia office will coordinate travel, lodging and meals. The runner(s) will be joined by the Gambian team: Pa Modou Sarr, Kebba Suso and Dodou “Spider” Bah.
Runners can bring along support people, provided they cover their own travel expenses, food and water.
For more information, contact Love4Gambia founder Erin Poirier @ erin.poirier@novascotiagambia.ca
By Pa Modou Sarr, Kanifing, The Gambia* with Jennifer Pasiciel, Halifax, NS
(*internet connection in The Gambia was too weak to power wordpress so this blog was published by Erin)
Pa Modou Sarr from NSGA Gambia here. Having run two Love4Gambia runs across The gambia, one with Erin Poirier and one with Andrea Moritz, I am most pleased formally introduce our runner for the 2013 Love4Gambia run: Jennifer Pasiciel!
As we converge at the NSGA Gambia office here in Kanifing to discuss the past two years’ runs, the team in The Gambia, myself (Pa Modou), Kebba Suso and Dodou Bah are excited to go for another life saving run across the country. We’ve been introduced to Jennifer by our original coach Erin via Skype. We enjoyed every moment of the discussion with our two runners in Canada and we are just so excited to pick our new runner from the airport in June. Jennifer, we just cannot wait!
Here is Jennifer!
Let me tell you a little bit about Jennifer. She began running on the high school cross country team at the age of 12 and has developed an active lifestyle of hiking, running, and tree-planting since then. Over the past decade she has completed six marathons, hiked Kilimanjaro two times, and planted over half a million trees in British Columbia and Nova Scotia. She is also the race director of Run Without Borders, a non-profit, charity running race organized in Calgary, Edmonton, and Halifax.
Jennifer’s interest and passion for Africa began with a few courses in African Studies, followed by two trips to Eastern Africa- one to travel and volunteer in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, and another to conduct research on malarial diagnostic tests in rural Tanzania. It was here that she developed an interest in health promotion, education, and prevention at the global level. Jennifer is currently completing her Masters degree in health promotion at Dalhousie University, doing research on rural women’s health and the social determinants of health.
With this, we (The Gambian team) are urging everyone to support Jennifer and the team here to save and change the lives of young people through NSGA’s Peer Health Education program in The Gambia. The team is eager to keep the world updated about the run in June and that we hope to run with each of you in spirit.
Keep your donations ready to support a worthy course!
Do you dream about running in Africa? This is your chance!
The Nova Scotia-Gambia Association (NSGA) is looking for experienced marathon runners to travel to The Gambia in the summer of 2013 to complete the 424km Love4Gambia cross country run in support of its charitable work in the country.
Who: Experienced marathon runner(s) willing and able to run 424km over a 3 to 4 week period during the summer of 2013 Runners will be joined by Team Love4Gambia- Pa Modou Sarr, Kebba Susso and Dodou “Spiderman” Bah
What: A run across the country of The Gambia, totaling 424km. In 2011, the run was completed in 20 days with an average daily mileage of 25 km for 17 days and 3 full rest days. In 2012, the run was completed in 17 days with an average daily mileage of 32km and 2 full rest days.
Where: Koina to Banjul, The Gambia, West Africa
When: Ramadan is July 9 through August 7 and as such, the run must be complete by July 7. It will begin approximately 3 weeks prior to Ramadan
Why: This run and the money raised by it will support the health, education and human rights activities of the NSGA in The Gambia.
A runner will be asked to raise $5000 for the NSGA along with money to cover their travel expenses, food and water totaling approximately $3500. Fundraised donations > $20 are eligible for tax receipts, including individual (excluding the runner) donations towards travel expenses.
The NSGA Gambia office will coordinate travel, lodging and meals.
Runners may bring along support people, provided they cover their own travel expenses, food and water.
NSGA is pleased to be able to accommodate more than one runner for this summer 2013 run. The Gambia team will determine the number of running days for 2013
I marked World AIDS Day on December 1 by giving 2 presentations to the student bodies at Prince Andrew High School (where I work) and Dartmouth High School, with the NSGA’s Muhammed Ngallan. Muhammed and I met in The Gambia 4 summers ago when we worked on the NSGA Peer Health Education project together. It was pretty special for us to be in front of youth again. To share the stage together, this time in Canada with Canadian youth.
We had an amazing day and the youth were amazing. We showed them my Love4Gambia Radio Documentary, which you’ll find at the end of this post. Then we each spoke to them.
I had a few rough notes in front of me to keep myself on track, mostly to ensure that I didn’t get carried away and eat up all of Muhammed’s speaking time. Before hand, I pulled what I wanted to say from my blogs and put it together so that I could share it with you here. So here it is.
When Muhammed and I finished speaking, many youth wanted to talk to us individually. Two youth stood out for me.
The first was a shy girl. She spoke so quietly that I could barely hear her.
“Thank you for talking about how a woman can achieve anything,” she said. “I want to do a career than usually men only do. I want to be a paratrooper. People tell me that I can’t because I’m a girl. So thanks for saying that I can do it.”
The second girl was not at all shy. She demanded.
“Who is the father of your baby?”
I laughed.
Word AIDS Day Love4Gambia Speech
December 1, 2011
Since I’ve returned home from The Gambia, I’ve spoken to a lot of people about my run and my team. Most people ask, “How did you actually do that? How did you actually run all the way across a country?”
I don’t really have an answer other than I trained really hard. I was really, really determined. And I really, truly believed that I could do it. That’s what I want to talk to you about today. We’re lucky to have Muhammed with us; he’s going to talk about The Gambia and HIV in The Gambia for us while I talk about the run. For most of this, you don’t have to be runner to understand it.
A friend listened to this radio documentary on the day that it played on CBC radio and then said to me, “oh, it made your run sound so easy.”
Maybe this is the case, I don’t know. I can only look at the run and listen to this documentary having been the girl who actually ran it and I’ll tell you, it was far from easy. But this was just a 25-minute snapshot, it’s not the whole story.
This summer, there were never any moments where I thought that I would give up but it was far from easy. I always knew, or I guess believed, that I would make it but there moments were it was hard.
I ran 424 km
I was running 25km/day: more than a half marathon
In units of time, I was running 2.5 hours a day but 25 km took longer than 2.5 hours. We rested 90 minutes at the 20km mark. I stopped every 20 minutes to drink more water at our truck. So in total, our running day was 8am to 1:30pm.
Our motto was Eat, Sleep, Run
The heat:
This is the first think that I want to touch on that I had to deal with; that made it so that the run was not easy. It was HOT. It was 38 degrees every single day and 42 degrees on many. The heat never impacted my running performance because I chose not to let it.
Sometimes after I explain this, people will say, “oh, so the heat wasn’t that bad.” I explain that that wasn’t it at all. It was very hot; 42 degrees is very hot. It’s 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit. It was so hot that 2 pairs of my sneakers melted.
I couldn’t do anything about the heat. I had a 25km goal each day, regardless of the air temperature. I had no control over the heat. But I did have control over how I responded to and dealt with the heat. I coped with the heat by not even considering the heat. I never, ever considered that the heat might cause me to stop running because there was so way I was going to stop running. Stopping was never in the realm of options.
Managing 42 degree heat was all about being strong. The human body will allow you to be strong enough if you will it to be strong enough.
The people who would say to me, “I could never run in that heat,” they are wrong. They could. The human body can do it. I think that they’ve just never put themselves in a situation where they are determined to reach their goal, no matter what.
Besides the heat, I had to get through a lot of other challenges including the South Bank Road, my legs and setbacks.
Setbacks happen in running as in life. You need to be prepared for them. For me, for my team, the remarkable days were the ones that were unremarkable.
Here are the setbacks I face: I didn’t always want to run
Day 5: guts turned on me during the raining, spam saved the day.
Day 6: km markers appeared. I had run 150km already= awesome! But 280km to go, not so awesome
Day 7: my setback was emotional, not physical. Emotions were stronger. Happy was happier. Sad was sadder.
Day 9: poisoned myself with water and ran 25km anyway
Day 15: no food. Skin bleeding and no Brikama at 26km
Day 16: traffic tried to end our life by swallowing us up, see here
(read more about what I talked about in detail in this blog titled “How to be Strong”)
Being a Woman
Being a woman has been a dominant theme of my running days. I anticipated this but not to the extent that it played out. I expected that my running expedition would exhibit female athletic ability and facilitate breaking down gender barriers in endurance sport participation for women. I knew that this was a male dominated society. Women in The Gambia are not political leaders. They are not athletes. To many men and women, I was an oddity.
When we meet people, Pa Modou and Kebba would proudly introduce me as the runner who is running from Koina to Banjul. The person would look at me a say, “Her?!” They were never able to hide their disbelief. In fact, I’m pretty sure they didn’t even try. Most often, they would follow this up with, “Well, how can a woman do that?” Or “I can’t believe a woman can do that.”
Pa Modou and Kebba would reply, “Yes, she can, she is very strong.” I told these people that I’d see them in Banjul. They knew that wouldn’t believe it until I actually did it.
In the end, reaching the shores of the Atlantic, 424km from Koina, wasn’t even enough. On day 16, Spider’s coworkers came to watch us run. We ran passed these guys and waved at them. When Spider returned to work, these men interrogated him.
“Is she really a woman?”
”How do you know? Have you seen her woman parts?”
Even after seeing me their with own eyes, they doubted that I was actually a woman because of my athletic ability. For these Gambian men, it was easier to believe that I was actually a man.
I met one of Pa Modou’s football teammates after the run ended.
“I’ve been waiting to see you,” he said, “Can I see your legs?”
I’m not sure what he expected but he seemed a disappointed with my sinewy calves.
Ashley and I were on the news on the eve that our plane arrived in The Gambia, before we traveled to Koina to begin the run. The news is very important and if a Gambian owns or can access a television, they tune in. A number of people would approach Ashley and I on the street. They would look at Ashley and say:
“I saw you and that man on tv.”
‘That man’ would be me. I do not look like a man. But it was so hard for Gambians to believe that a woman could run all the way across the country. It was easier to just believe that I was a man.
Meeting your goals and dreams:
A lot of people thought that I was crazy and didn’t think that I would make it to the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, when I got home in August, people would say to me, “I didn’t think that you make it.” I would want to reply, “Thank you, I also don’t think that you are going to achieve your life goals.” But I wouldn’t.
The thing was, it didn’t matter what they thought or what they believed. I made it to the ocean only because I believed that I could do it. My belief was the only one that mattered.
And it put in the hard work to make my goal, my dream happen. I didn’t make it 424km across a hot African country by sitting on the couch. I made it by training and running 6 days a week for 7months. Hard work, preparation and belief in yourself are how you make dreams happen.
That’s my message for you, my high school students. You are the beginning of your lives. If you have a dream: be it to go to university or NSCC, to become an artist, to become a mechanic and own your own garage, become a famous mathematician, become a better athlete, run across an African Nation… You put in the hard work to prepare. You don’t just sit on the couch hoping or waiting for it to happen- you put in the hard work. You believe really hard that you can do it and you don’t listen to anyone who says you can’t. The only person who can tell you that you can’t is yourself. So you go out there and you make it happen just like I did and don’t EVER let anyone tell you that you can’t.
On an early November morning, I was having breakfast and browsing Facebook – a part of my typical morning routine before heading to work at my Ottawa government office. Little did I know that this was not to be a typical morning.
After only two sips from my latté, a message from Luke McDonald of A1 Aerobics First, my favourite running store in Halifax, popped up on my screen.
Luke: Wanna go on a running adventure of a life time?
Andrea: Absolutely! When and where?
Luke: Across The Gambia.
This summer… In the heat of July.
FB Messenger: Luke is typing… (a bit slowly for Andrea’s liking, as she is now fully awake in spite of the relatively low caffeine level.)
Andrea: Is there a web site I can check out for more info?
And so it began: Love 4 Gambia 2012 – The Sequel was born!
After browsing this blog, I contacted Erin Poirier, the strong and fearless woman who ran the 424 kilometers from The Gambia’s Eastern border to the Atlantic Ocean on its West coast this summer, to see if she could answer a few questions for me. By all accounts, this was indeed going to be a running adventure of a life time! And better yet, it would allow me to give back to the beautiful and spirited people of Africa I had met during my travels. I was in!
Suzanne Ferrier, triathlete extraordinaire of Halifax, is suspected of having had something to do with putting me on Luke’s radar as a potential recruit for the Love4 Gambia project. During a visit to Ottawa this summer, we had dinner together and chatted about my recent trips through Southern Africa as well as about ultra running. Thanks, Luke and Suzanne, for getting me involved!
I will officially launch Love4Gambia 2012 in the coming days. I am excited about the project and a little nervous as well, since Erin set the bar high by raising an amazing $35,000 to help keep kids alive in The Gambia. I hope I’ll be able to match her contribution to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria in this West African nation.
To learn more about the Nova Scotia Gambia Association and its programs, the Love4Gambia project, as well as about my background, check out the About tab at the top of the page. And then don’t forget to move your mouse over to the right to click on the Donate Now button!
Thanks for reading and for your support for Love4Gambia!
Team Love4Gambia 2011 had a number of dreams. Our summer together was all about accomplishing big dreams over the course of many kilometers of road; many litres of Gatorade; a lot of hard work and perseverance; and care, support and love for each other.
Our biggest dreams included:
Reaching the Atlantic Ocean in Banjul, hand-in-hand, 424km from where we began in farm field in Koina at the Senegalese border, hand-in-hand
Meeting Akon
Having babies post-Love4Gambia run
Having the Love4Gambia legacy continue.
Reuniting several years in the future to run from Banjul to somewhere else (Accra, Lagos, Cape Town…)
We reached the ocean together, hand-in-hand.
We haven’t meet Akon (yet).
My husband and I are expecting our first baby in April.
Because of Andrea Moritz, the Love4Gambia legacy will continue in the summer of 2012.
I’m thrilled to introduce you to Andrea who will be traveling to The Gambia in June to join Pa Modou, Kebba and Spider to run our historic 424km route across the country. You can read more about Andrea here. Andrea will be taking over most of the blogging here on www.love4gambia.com. Watch for her first post in the coming days.
I know that Andrea’s journey will inspire many in both Canada and The Gambia. Through the money that she raises for the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association, her journey will saves the lives of many in The Gambia.
I think that this June, when Andrea takes her first steps from that broken cinder block in Koina with my Gambian brothers, I will feel envious. I know that this emotion will be fleeting. I’ll be holding the newborn baby that I dreamed about every day of my run across The Gambia.
My husband and I planned this baby for my return from Africa and we are incredibly blessed that our plan came to fruition very quickly (150km weeks are good for fertility). Ashley, Pa Modou, Kebba, Spider and I talked about this baby almost every day. “Inshallah, a baby will come,” they would say. Kebba prayed for us everyday.
Baby Poirier and I will be cheering for Team Love4Gambia 2012 everyday this summer as they make their push to Banjul. I hope that you’ll join and support Andrea, Pa Modou, Kebba and Spider on this new journey too.
For those of who have been following my writing, I’ll begin to do most of it on my new blog www.foreverinrunningshoes.com. If you subscribed to my writing via email, please subscribe to my new site too!
I’ll leave you now with this video. It was recorded as my team and I walked out of the water on the shores of the Atlantic in Banjul, after our victory swim. I am hugging Ashley and I’m crying.
You can’t see my Fula sister Ashley’s face or hear what she is saying to me so let me tell you what she was saying:
”I can’t wait to tell your baby about what you did and what you accomplished here in The Gambia.”
When I first met Erin at my company Christmas party in December of 2010 (her husband and I work together) I never thought she would take me on this incredible Love4Gambia journey with her.
I agreed to become a part of her team (communications role) after learning more about what was going on with the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association and why Erin was embarking on this incredible run.
Well now that the run has been completed, all 424km with over $34,000 (in counting) raised, I wanted to take a moment to recap how the media has embraced Erin and her cause.
Five newspaper articles including two front page features.
One national running magazine article (Canadian Running).
Numerous radio appearances in Canada and The Gambia.
Six television appearances; BT, Global Sports and on the news in The Gambia.
More blog mentions and features than we can count.
But most importantly everyone who caught Erin’s enthusiasm and shared her story with someone else, that is how change happens!
Keep a look out – more big things will be coming from the Love4Gambia camp in the future.
……….. wow! If only I can be permitted by the English language to add a word to the dictionary then it will be “KEDAP” and my meaning of it will be the team of teams or best of the best! The letters in the word have their meaning and with all due respect I have came to realize that this word deserve to be added to the English dictionary. If am ask to do a thesis for this I will surely write more than a manual in defense of KEDAP! Despite not been a university graduate or a professor, take me on it and I will hammer home the points straight. Love4Gambia has without doubt played an integral role in the building of my word (KEDAP!)…..(Much more about KEDAP in my next blog).
Being my second blog post, I feel a bit unsure of the reaction I might get compared to the first blog I posted before. As a team member for the Love4Gambia run, I have had series of days that I have thought it was all a dream. The whole team has evolve from Canadians and Gambians to a cemented brotherly and sisterly tie that has been built to not only foster the relationship we have as a team but to save the lives of young Gambians and west African through the peer health education program of the Nova Scotia Gambia Association (Ashley and Kebba have showed us how much of brother and sister they are by always been on opposite ends of any discussion..:)). The idea was conceived and planned for by Coach Erin with the help of those people who share this great idea of helping to save the lives of young people in the Gambia thumbs up for your achievement (don’t worry coach Erin I mean our achievement!!!…:)) .
Taking a trip back to that faithful day when the team assembled at west field prepared to take off to Banjul, I said to myself whiles driving to the office “we are going to accomplish our mission today” and the answer came YES! (Do your best and forget the rest). Despite having a blistered toe, I couldn’t at the time in anyway ruin my coach’s wish of getting the whole team to the ocean. (Don’t get worried coach am all fine and kicking around now and as for the nurse…hmmmmmm am sorry!!! At least am in charge now since am writing the blog..) As a matter of fact what kept me going was the leadership strength built in Erin as a person who inspires and drives the entire team to this historic run, I was also motivated to make more kilo meters than Spiderman (tell u what, he was doing everything possible to sing his song for me but hmmm I was already inspired to go for it by my able coach… Spider don’t worry when we go to Lagos you can try again…lol). As a team we were able to reach the Ocean of course not without Cathy going on to get her 5KM..lol (tell you what she has done more running of the NSGA so she needed the rest! I salute you Dr. what could we do without your support).
The sense of accomplishment I felt as we hold hands and raise them in the air before we get into the ocean was something I have never felt before, I cried. The water felt so good and I felt so happy and proud of everyone most especially Erin who ran every kilometer from Koina to Banjul. May I once again in writing say thank you to Erin and to all those who have donated to this worthy cause and those who have followed every step of our run. As a team for the world, we played our part and you played your part and I personally value every penny been put in to this run. Without doubt this will go a long way in saving the lives of many vulnerable young people in the Gambia. LOVE YOU ALL. NAMASTE!!!!!!
BONUS!
When we were dropping off Erin and Ashley at the airport we dove for almost two KM without anyone mentioning a word, everyone was thinking and my next blog will interview all the team members present in the truck what they were thinking!!!.
Am missing aunty Debby’s inspirational messages ..:(
I put on the T-Shirt we were given which reads.. “I RAN WITH ERIN ACROSS THE GAMBIA FOR NSGA” in the bank the security guy told me “ I heard the prize for this run was won by a TUBAB!” I looked and him and said “ be careful man”
AKON is still with me..:)Confession time who hide my Akon on the trip!!!
Ashley and I have been doing a lot of things on our one week post-run-across-the-country holiday. We’ve been lying on the beach. We’ve been swimming, believing that the Smiling Coast’s water can cure all. We’ve been practicing yoga on the beach. We’ve been spending as much time as possible with our guys Spider, Kebba, Pa Modou and Pa’s wife Agie. We’ve been crying every morning at breakfast. We’ve been trying to hold onto as many Love4Gambia moments as possible.
In our moment-capturing, we’ve developed this list of “roles” that each of our invaluable team members played. When we began, we had titles like “runner, logistic man, driver, nurse” but very quickly realized that we were a team that would take care of each other together. Titles and duties weren’t necessary.
Ashley Sharpe
Be the nurse
Take care of Erin, should she need taking care of
Feed Erin
Water Erin
Mix the team’s Gatorade
Be the manager
Tell Erin what to do when Erin is no longer functioning at full capacity
Put Erin to bed
Sometimes wash Erin’s running gear (what a girl)
Sunscreen Erin
Lead team effort to make Erin eat more
Push Erin out of the truck when she doesn’t want to run
Run 100km across African country
Run farther and longer than ever before
Tape Erin
Massage Erin’s quads
Manage the boys
Try to prevent the boys from harming themselves
Threaten not to take care of boys should they harm themselves through stupidity and stubbornness
Sing special Canadian songs while running
Negotiate permission for Erin to have one single Julbrew on a school night
Participate in many giggle-fests
Possible contributor to Akon-conspiracy (?)
Monitor pathway between Erin’s brain and mouth and intervene when necessary (understanding that running 25km a day makes one emotionally labile)
Drive the NSGA truck through the bush after relearning a stick shift on an African dirt road
Manage all of the money
Manage our room key
Yell at boys “no crying in the truck” when necessary
Be an irreplaceable part of the team
Pa Modou Sarr
Run 136km across The Gambia
Run even when not feeling like it
Be DJ extraordinaire for 424FM: All Akon All the Time
Sing Akon when Akon is not playing
Develop interrogation skills for upcoming film appearance as CIA Agent Momodou M. Sarr
Entertain team with dramatic performance as President and continue performance much longer than a lesser skilled person could ever continue
Tease the Fula
Become brothers with the Fula
Arrange media appearances, electricity or no electricity
Hold Erin’s hand during media appearances
Remain at the ready to assist falling runners: “Careful Ashley!”
Take care of Ashley while Ashley is sick and Erin is running
Become Ashley (for 1 day)
Pack the truck
Unpack the truck
Secure location in which to unpack truck and put team to bed- sometimes requiring way more negotiation than reasonable (Soma)
Drive the truck
Operate the Flip camera, the Cannon camera, the Nissan Patrol stick shift, the gas pedal and possibly 1 of his 2 cell phones simultaneously (what a man)
Teach Ashley to drive the truck (while recording driving lesson, thanks Pa-parazzi!)
Listen to Erin’s stories and answer her questions
Keep Erin company by keeping in-step with Cliff Matthews’ track warm up drills
Celebrate each 20km and 5km accomplishment
Remain the push-up king (sorry, Ashley)
Beat Spider’s kilometer total
Practice yoga on demand- Namaste!
Yell “morfing” at kids who incessantly yell “toubab” at Erin and Ashley
Surprise team with full cooked breakfast on rest day
Cheerfully allow Erin and Ashley to talk with wife Agie every day
Entertain Erin with football stories while running across country
Share marriage stories (go Team Marriage!)
Make Erin feel better when she’s ill (preferred method- decorating Erin’s “presidential convoy” truck)
Pull Erin onto the road on mornings when she doesn’t want to run
Make the breakfast tapalapa sandwiches for the team while singing Akon in the front seat
Read the team our daily messages from Aunty Debby
Get Erin enough food and water
Locate appropriate trees for rest
Hold the team together with easy, caring nature
Be an irreplaceable part of the team
Kebba Suso
Be the King: EGWEEEE!
Run A LOT of kilometers next to Erin
Fill in all empty running shifts following team decision about Erin not running alone
Sing to Erin when running is hard (in English or Mandinka)
Listen to Erin’s stories
Answer Erin’s questions (sometimes with strategically shortest answer possible: ‘poverty’)
Be the Dalai Lama when Erin needs some extra spirit
Provide Erin’s anthropology lessons while running
Lead kids in singing
Lead mamas in singing
Mislead crowds who are gathered for the president and instead receive a running white girl and a running Gambian
Make Erin feel better when ill (preferred method- decorating Erin’s “presidential convoy” truck)
Pack the truck
Unpack the truck
Secure location to unpack truck and put team to bed
Drive the truck. But frequently threaten to abandon the truck if driving the truck interferes with running quota.
Force Ashley to drive
Get our morning tapalapa (bread)
Cut the mangos
Be Ashley’s brother. Evidence of brotherhood- much playful quarreling
Grow gorgeous, brave and generous sons and nephews to share the running work on a day when the team was down
Share sisters Bintou and Fatou with the team (we love you, sisters!)
Possible contributor to Akon conspiracy (?)
Practice yoga- Namaste!
Use smile to light up the truck
Use laugh to light up the truck
Get Erin enough food and water
Locate appropriate trees for rest
Exhibit patience during Fula-Serere battles
Pay 80Dalasi in fines for saying “I’m hot”
Locate and bring Ashley to the bootlegger on Erin’s birthday
Occasionally impress team by eating more rice than Pa Modou
Celebrate each 20km and 5km accomplishment
Be an irreplaceable part of the team
Dodou Bah/Spiderman
Infuse team with energy and enthusiasm on Day 12
Be the lead running vocalist
Be the lead running dancer
Be the lead running army chanter
Banter with the Serere
Become brothers with the Serere
Dance with Ashley
Keep mood happy at all cost
Guard Erin while running through insane traffic in Serrekunda
Lead swimming lessons for Pa Modou and the Suso kids in Bwiam
Engage in high stake kilometer competition with Pa Modou
Fit into the team like the 5th finger of a glove
Catch up on more than 2 weeks’ worth of team jokes
Playfully follow Pa Modou’s orders like a good sport
Lead opposition party in Pa Modou for President
Be the ‘Bachelor’s Team’ with Ashley
Happily do warm-up drills with Erin and Pa Modou on days where legs are slow to warm up to running 20km
Celebrate each 20km and 5km accomplishment
Become the 5th glue that holds the team together. Dodou Bah: “Together we stand; united we fall; Black and White unite; together as one.”
Talk Erin and Ashley through their return to Canada: “the body will return home but soul will live on in The Gambia”
Ashley and I have been relaxing on the beach and we’ve been processing the incredible experience that we’ve just had together with Pa Modou Sarr, Kebba Suso and Spiderman Dodou Bah.
In “Running the Sahara,” Charlie insightfully states, ‘this experience was so big that I can’t fit it into my head.’ We relate to that.
Ashley and I have been keeping a list of what we’ve run through, what we’ve been through… for our own memory bank as we try to fit experience into our heads.
We are so lucky that we ran through pretty much everything that West Africa had to offer. You’ll see just how lucky we were, as follows.
We ran through:
A wedding
A funeral
A naming ceremony (remember all Muslim events, we are in a Muslim country)
Refugee processing near the Casamance (Senegal) conflict
3 presidential convoys
1 presidential convoy causing a monster traffic jam in Serrekunda requiring us to run through heart and centre of said traffic jam
1 presidential convoy in Soma that caused a stampede exactly where we were standing in which a young girl got trampled. Our guys, Kebba and Pa Modou, turned into American football players instantly, bear hugging and protecting us in a huddle.
Dirt road
Paved road
Partially paved road
Side of road
Road with monkeys
Road with bushrats
Road with snakes at pee stops
No roads with nile monitor lizards, thank God
Rain
Never enough rain
Sun (34-35 degrees)
Hotter sun (37-38 degrees)
Hottest sun (42 degrees)
Humidity- worse than hottest sun
Humidity and sun so hot that on the last day in Banjul, as I stood motionless next to our truck as we waited to begin, I felt cold. It was 29 degrees. The weather was “cool” for The Gambia. In that moment, I knew that my brain’s temperature recognition was thoroughly messed up.
2 pairs of melted sneakers
We ran through more than these “things:” events, roads, animals and weather.
(Dad, you may not want to continue reading this list. Disclaimer- it’s just as safe here as anywhere else in the world. All cities have crime pockets. And we had a team of very protective men with us. Ashley once said that she was scared of a guy with a stick, thinking he might like to hit her with the stick. The man was mentally ill. If the man hit her with the stick, peaceful Kebba said very simply, “Well then I would tear him apart.”)
We ran through rice fields, ground nut fields and couscous fields.
We ran and drove through long hours together where my team’s bond and friendship turned into family. If you want to really get to know an African country and 3 African men, there’s no better way to become close with the country and its people than to run across it with them. West African societies, especially tribal relationships, are incredibly complex. I now have a wealth of knowledge stored away from conversations that our feet carried us through.
We ran more kilometers as a team than I did alone. Days 8 through 14, I didn’t run a single step solo. On Day 15, I ran 9 km solo (7 by request) and those were my last solo kms.
We enjoyed hours of laughing together.
Ashley and I sometimes giggled late at night until we cried.
We enjoyed hours of a dramatic production where Pa Modou was president and we were the people, engaged in an election campaign. When there’s no television, internet, stereo… you entertain yourself in other ways.
We entertained ourselves with a rotating “boss:” the team member who (besides me) ran the most kilometers that day. We laughed hysterically as the boss tried to wield their power until it expired at midnight.
We enjoyed hours of Serere vs Fula jokes until I had one hour too many and started running between Pa Modou and Spider hoping they would finally stop. They stopped while running, continued the rest of the hours of the day.
We ran through the brief illnesses of 3 of our team members and learned that when one team member is down, we are all down.
We ran with 3 amazing groups who joined us: children, mamas in rice fields and soldiers on convoy. We loved them all equally. While the soldiers in the Gambia National Army and the National Guard didn’t run any steps with us, they began to recognize us and would salute me from their convoy (sometimes up to 6 trucks and over 100 soldiers). I would salute them back.
We ran so long on the same road that the bush taxi drivers began to recognize us and would give us a happy beep and wave instead of an irritated “get the heck outta my way” beep and wave.
We went through a few mornings where I didn’t want to get out of the truck and run. On these mornings Kebba always felt my fatigue and would say, “Oh, Erin. I hate to let you out of the truck.” Ashley would push me out and Pa would drag me onto the road. Once pink sneakers are on the road, fatigue would be replaced with happiness. My team just had to get the pink sneakers onto the road.
We rested for 2 hours under 15 different trees along the South Bank Road and led way more than 15 curious youth through yoga practice.
We ran through the mysterious disappearance of Akon for 3 days.
We stayed in places where our dinner was killed before us. Although in Ndemban, the 10 year-old boy entrusted with killing the rooster with a dull butter knife only managed to mortally wound the rooster and Spider had to step in to relieve the boy of this duties and finish the job.
Ashley and I peed and changed clothes in many hidden spots in the forest together. Sometimes we were only hidden from the truck and that was perfectly acceptable. Sometimes we just changed next to the truck “hidden” by my camping towel.
We ran through forests renowned for armed robbery, although the last incidence was more than one year ago. Though such is the reputation that locals remain weary and police checks are more numerous.
We celebrated each overhead shower and each room with more than one electrical outlet.
We endured a robbery at our lodge in Janjanbureh where the thief knocked off the screen on our window and possibly entered our room. We’re not sure; the runner was dead asleep and Ashley just rolled over in bed without noticing. We heard that he was a very unskilled thief who only made away with one wallet from a guy in another bank of rooms. We did get a lot of mileage out of this thief as he was named as a suspect in the disappearance of Akon.
We knew that we had been running and living “in the bush” a long time when we were in Ndemban, staying at a local compound next to the road leading to Senegal and site of the Casamance civil conflict. Kebba told us: “We are 3km from Casamance so if you hear gunfire overnight, don’t worry, it’s just coming from the rebels across the border.” And we easily replied, “Yea, whatever. Is there an electrical outlet here so we can charge the Garmin?” Then Ashley and I didn’t even think to talk about this conversation for another 4 days.
We ran so long that Stephen Harper was starting to look good.
I ran so long and got called “toubab” (Mandinka word for white person) so many times that I started following Pa Modou’s lead and began calling “morfing” (Mandinka word for black person) back.
We ran so long together that I felt like we could run to the end of the world together.
When Kebba drove us back to Leybato Guest House after our victorious swim in the Atlantic Ocean, we sat in the driveway next to each other in the front seat. We were both silent for about a full minute. I finally looked at him and said, “Kebba, I don’t want to get out of the truck because when I get out, it feels like it’ll be over.” Kebba nodded his head slowly. After a few moments, he looked at me and said, “Our team will never end.” Then we were brave enough to get out the truck.
My team’s goal was accomplished but after what we’ve travelled, experienced, endured, been through, supported each other through, run through together… being a team will never end.
Lauren
