Pick-ups and Put-downs April 10, 2008

I may have just been subjected to THE WORST pick-up line ever. I was sitting at the Cafe de Rome in Dakar tonight finishing my cornish hen, salad and glass of wine while pulling out my hair reading a terribly-structured document when a man taps me on the shoulder: “Mademoiselle, si vous me cherchez je suis juste deriere vous.”

You have got to be kidding me! “If you’re looking for me, I’m right behind you”!!!!!!!! Come on, dude. Can’t you see I’m busy? I was, actually, ripping hairs out of my head while reading this doc and hadn’t lifted my eyes to the world in a good 25 minutes. I was, for all intents and purposes, engrossed in my own shit.

So I replied, “I certainly wasn’t looking for you, unless of course, you are a French Language editor.”

“Lucky for you, that is exactly what I am.”

Handing him the papers: “Cool. Here’s a document I’d like you to read. Get back to me with all the edits in half an hour.”

The game goes only so far and he was in way over his head. He giggled, pushed the papers back into my hands and sheepishly went back to his seat.

It works everytime. No one wants real responsibility when trying to shag a chic.

I ran like a serious HO tonight. I had taken a two-day break since I’d totally overdone it Monday night. My quads were giving out on me and my back was aching. So today, after the most frustrating meeting with people who don’t believe in the universality of human rights since they contradict their religion, I geared up in my freshly-washed skort suit, and hit the Dakar’s seawall.

The first 15 minutes of any run are always the toughest. Generally, I spend that time trying to find a justifiable reason to stop running–The hard concrete is injuring my knees, my lungs are about to collapse from the African heat, the wind is causing unnecessary strain on my lower vertebrae. Luckily tonight, around minute 14, just as I was about to stop running for my hypochondrized herniated disk, three guys popped out in front of me running exactly at my pace. For the next 10 minutes, I followed them as quietly as a mouse, overcoming all the constrction-related obstacles by treading in their footsteps. Their presence kept me motivated. I really didn’t want them to see me, but that becamed inevitable. One of them my have heard me panting behind. Immediately, he informed his comrads of the Tubab in a skort running after them.

For a moment I realized that, in any other context, I might be considered a stalker. I did, in fact, follow them for about 2 km at a 3-foot distance… So I figured I should come clean. “Vous me motivez,” I said.

“Allors, tu es esportive?” they answered. So our conversation and group run began. I accumulated enough energy in the 15 minutes we ran together to carry me all the way home at very fast pace. We ran together to my usual mid-point which is essentially an outdoor gym on the ocean. Imagine on this cliff overlooking the Atlantic, the city has built all this excercise infrastructure: inclined planks, bars, benches, etc. that people (only men) freely use for resistance training. The place was crawling tonight with dozens of guys working out like juice monkeys.

When I got there with my newly-created posse, the world came to a halt and all faces turned toward me. Not only was I the only woman, but I was also the only person wearing a skort. I ignored the unwelcomed attention, stretched out my back and said goodbye to my new friends. I proceeded to sprint all the way back to my treasured Cafe de Rome. As I was leaving the open gym area, the one comment I did catch was, “Hey, toi tu es vraiment forte! Ca se voi que tu as beacoup de puissance!” If nothing else, that comment forced me to run hard and fast.

I did it. I will probably suffer for it tomorrow, but I rocked my world tonight. There you have it: The Warrior Goddess prevails again.

Good night from Africa’s Western Coast.

I AM A WARRIOR GODDESS! April 9, 2008

My mother came up with this taxonomy for me two years ago when I was preparing to run the marathon. “Warrior” is my Genus and “Goddess” is my species. My mother couldn’t have picked a more accurate description of me. This nomenclature drills to the very core of my being while equally describing my superfice and default personalities.

The truth is that I wish I could be something cooler than this, but the reality is that I am simply not. I wish I were a tragic hero or a mad scientist or an insane genius; however, I will have to settle with being but a warrior goddess, which implies nothing more than physical prowess and divine beauty.

Where exactly the mind fits into the mix, I am not sure. But the more I deconstruct myself, the more I realize that I am a fighter and I am unbearably attractive to the world.

This can be illustrated by this time in Mauritania when I was running around a track for exercise one afternoon. Stupid me, I was carrying a diskman… Not such a smart thing to do in one of the poorest countries (hence no taxonomical identification of intellect). Anyway, the school yard cleared out almost too quickly, but I thought nothing of it since it was daylight. Behind the bushes at the far end of the track hid a man with less-than-noble intentions. As I approached the bushes he jumped out and ordered me to give him my diskman. Well, if any of you are runners, you will know how important a runner’s music is to her psychological (and by association, physical) fortitude. Convoluted writing aside, I didn’t wanna give up my machine. So I said, “no way” and kept on running. The guy ran after me and pawed at my machine. I pulled my hands away and ran faster. The guy then tried to trip me and pull me down, but I manged to stay the course. By now my adrenaline was pumping, as any warrior’s would. So I grabbed the guy’s shirt, elbowed him in the ribs and pushed him to the ground. Then I sprinted toward the exit of the school yard. He ran after me but couldn’t catch up. When I got to the populated street outside, I solicited help but people just stared at me like I was a Goddess.

So there you have it.

The healing power of the setting sun April 7, 2008

Hello loyal readers and new recruits,

I know I’m long overdue for another edition of “What the hell is going on around me?!” I just made that title up, but it’s actually what I feel most of the time when I’m in Africa. Maybe I should change my blog’s name to that? Comments anyone?

Ok. Well, after our trip north in Ghana, Jackmac came to meet us to join in on the fun. Jackmac is one of my favourite people around. He’s 70 years old and has three lifetimes of experience under his belt. I swear he must have been reincarnated a good three times. That is the only thing that could possibly explain how he had the time to accomplish everything he’s done. The guy was a Catholic priest for 10 years, left the clergy, got married, had six kids, has 4 university degrees, including a PhD, ran a hospital department for 20 years, had a major influence on how Canada dealt with HIV when it was discovered in the 80s, was a professor for 20 years, lived in the US, the UK, spent years in Ukraine, has 14 grandkids and plays a mean game of golf. WHAT?! I’m 30 years old. I only 40 years to catch up and I have no kids and no prospect for insemination at this point…

Anyway, spending 2 weeks with Jackmac and Teebee was like being stuck for eternity between Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon during some aggrevated discussion about whose better looking than who or whose lawn in greener or whether Ghana’s hills were logged and if so what happened to the stumps? I don’t know in which circle of hell Dante would place this as punishment, but may I hazzard to say it would approach the core…

That aside, I always learn so much from these two guys and hope that one day I have so much experience that I too may earn the right to be crotchety and polemic with everyone I meet.

Ghana ended with a farewell meal at a Chinese restaurant, of course. The ironic thing was that it was the only place in Accra that fed me a proper espresso.

Finally I’m in Dakar which I like to call African Paris. I can drink all the good coffee my hypertensed body can handle and eat all the gourmet food my perdiems will cover. Then, I can run it all off along the ocean’s coast. I can’t even express to you how beautiful my running route is here. If I could, however, I would of course leave out the the neighbourhood through which I have to hold my breath for fear of vomiting from the rancid smell of sewage. I would also leave out all the obstacles I have to run over or through like the perilous construction zone, the metal wire skeletons of the concrete they are about to pour, the random man holes that appear out of nowhere in the middle of the sidwalk and the children that jump out in front of you to ask for money with their red tin cans. All that aside, my route follows the coast as the setting sun sooths the lactic pain in my muscles.

Tonight I even ran right to the edge of a steep cliff which provided me with a balcony from which to watch the powerful waves crash below. I did 20 mintues of yoga there “con il sole in fronte”, as my dad would say. And for the first time ever in Africa, no one stared at me. The only people who were around were a handful of athletes who were doing their own exercises, minding their business.

So I closed my eyes and used my other senses to take in this moment of stillness and gratitude for all that life has given me.