Last week I was awoken from a turbulent dream to find myself in need of a bathroom. I was staying with the Chauke family, so going to the bathroom meant getting dressed and taking a stroll through the darkness of the corn field to the pit toilet. Stumbling out through the corn stalks, I noticed the faint sound of singing as it emanated from some unknown yard the village.
As I walked backed to the house, the singing gradually became more distinct. Once back in bed, the singing flowed unimpeded through my window along with the moonlight. I could not sleep. After a few wasted minutes of trying, with great effort, to keep my eyes shut, they popped open and I quickly re-dressed. I had resolved to find where and who and why there was singing happening at this hour.
Once outside, I looked at the sky and tried to gauge the time. The sky seemed to glow promisingly, so I assumed that it must be early morning, perhaps five. With quick steps I walked towards the music, avoiding donkey poop – which is large and dark and sometimes hard to see – and generally tried to warm myself up. 10 minutes later I was peering at a group of about 30 people standing in a circle, in close proximity to a healthy looking fire. They were singing and clapping their hands in a way that was absolutely memorizing to me. An individual singer, without accompaniment, might sound a little off-key or even unambiguously dissonant. But when the whole group was singing, the harmonies sounded perfect. Really, it’s almost good enough to entice a person out of his bed in the middle of the night.
Upon finding the source of the music, I was presented with a dilemma. In physics, they call it the observer effect: sometimes, the very act of observing something alters how it would have acted in the first place. In certain social settings, my presence brings about a response that is potentially distracting. Perhaps this is something private, and my presence will not be appreciated? If, as can be reasonably assumed, this is a gathering of religious significance, will I be desecrating something or the other by participating?
I had come too far, however, to creepily observe the group from afar. Besides, I’ve lived in South Africa long enough at this point to feel comfortable participating in such events. After the requisite explanations, my presence is almost always tolerated, sometimes even celebrated. So, I strode out of the shadows and into the yard with the singing. Heads turned and I waved and gave a perfunctory “Avuxeni” to the group. Since they were all singing, there was no response. I sat down next to an old man and suddenly noticed that everyone present, myself excluded, was wearing a Zionic Christian Church pin on their shirt. Since they are ZCC members, there is a special way to greet them.
“Khotsong”, I said to the old man.
“Ayete”, he responded, looking at me with sudden interest.
“Le Kae?” I asked.
“Ra gona”, he replied, extending the “o” sound until it trailed off. He did not inquire as to how I was.
We were silent for a few moments until he asked me my name and where I’m from since I am clearly not from here. There was more silence between us after that.
Then he asked me “In kari muni?”
I took out my phone to see the time and was surprised to find that it was 2:30 in the morning. Do these guys do this every Sunday?
In between songs, the old man speaks some rapid Shangaan to the group. I don’t catch everything, but I do catch “white guy”, “America”, and “Obama”. To my relief, no one takes interest and the singing resumes. After a while longer, a guy in a Che Guevara T-shirt takes me by the hand into the circle. I find myself clapping along with the group, though not singing because I don’t know any of the words. Every couple of minutes, the guy in the Che Guevara shirt falls down to the ground, holds his position for a moment, and then rapidly ascends back to his feet. Despite the chilly morning, he is sweating.
Minutes fly by and the thrill of being in such close proximity to the music it making me glad I got out of bed, despite my initial misgivings. Fatigue inevitably sets in and I eventually bid the group goodbye and headed back home to catch a little sleep before sunrise.
~ ~ ~
I have been running quite a bit lately, though I am concerned that it hasn’t been enough. I completed the 56 kilometre Long Tom Marathon at the very end of March, my birthday in fact, in six and half hours. That time qualified me to run the Comrades Marathon, which is somewhat longer at 89 kilometres (roughly 55 miles) and much, much better attended with fifteen to twenty thousand participants. Having, literally, just crossed the Long Tom finish line, a few of the many Peace Corps volunteers who had cheered for me as I completed the race asked me if I now intended to run the Comrades.
I was in a weakened mental state when they asked me. The first 2 hours of Long Tom felt great; too good, in fact. I whizzed through the first part on track to complete the course in 5 hours flat. I was confused too, since there had been much talk about hills and how difficult they would be to traverse. Why aren’t I hurting yet? Am I that good? Reality set in during a conversation with a fellow runner, perhaps 20 kilometres in. He pointed to landforms in the hazy distance that looked suspiciously like mountains to me. He informed me that we would be crossing them before the end of the race.
“That’s going to be the hard bit”, he reflected casually before surging ahead. Sure enough, once the hills began, my pace slowed down rather significantly. Suddenly my goal of “not ever walking” fell by the wayside. The new goal was simple: finish. At whatever cost. The hardest part of the marathon was not the mountains, however. The final 5 kilometres of the race were a slog for me. At that point my body felt ravaged. There was chaffing in some obvious places and some less obvious places. There was an intense sunburn enveloping my legs and neck. I was famished. All of this and I was feeling pain in every muscle I could think of. During my physical decline, I managed to chat with a number of people. One woman, the woman I guess I can blame my decision to run Comrades on, told me that she thought Long Tom was harder than Comrades due the hills.
With those words still fresh in my mind, I hastily decided to run Comrades on the reasoning that it can’t be that much worse than what I had just done. My fellow volunteers forced the point by pledging emotional and even monetary support for my venture. The emotional support has been great and a few volunteers are even coming to Durban to celebrate with me or commiserate, depending on whether I finish. The monetary support was great too, since getting to and from Durban, arranging accommodation and the various race-fees add up.
The Comrades Marathon, www.comrades.com, is the most popular ultra-marathon in the world. It is also a sporting event of some significance in South Africa. They even show it on TV! The race is from Pietermaritzburg to Durban in Kwa-Zulu Natal province and it promises to test my physical limits. This will be my second ultra-marathon and the longest distance I have ever run over the course of a single day. It is on this Sunday (May 24th, 2009).
That is what my mind has been consumed with lately. After the Marathon (AM), I will have to collect myself and begin to asses my remaining PC service. After Comrades I will have scarcely 11 months left until my South African visa expires.
