Tim Carberry: I really need to go to the gym more often. That reminds me, I need to quit the gym.

Trying to FaceTime with Tim

This actually came out of my dear friend Tim’s mouth one day in February – priceless.  We all cracked up but somehow, in his Tim way, he was serious. At the time, I had no idea how these words would visit me almost daily here in east Africa.

The gym – that western answer to our sedentary lifestyle.  Which gym?, we debate.  Should I splurge on Equinox or be reasonable with NYS?  Core or Passport membership?  But what about my yoga fix – which studio is best?  Maybe I should add a Crossfit series, or a bootcamp.  It’s nice out today – maybe I’ll run the East River, or over the Williamsburg Bridge.  Or take a bike ride up the west side and watch the sunset.  Or maybe I’ll just sit on the sofa and eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s while watching Nashville.   And settle into a cycle of self-loathing.  So many choices.

Here in Burundi, I long for such choices, and an opportunity for such self-loathing.  Getting exercise here has proven one of my biggest lifestyle challenges.  Now, let me preface this by admitting that if I could haul my hiney out of bed early in the mornings, things might go a little more smoothly.  But let’s face it, this is me, even in Africa.

The challenges are two-fold:  freedom and privacy.  These will be recurring themes in posts to come, but today they underlie the issue of exercise. 

Option 1:  Running.  I will open with, I hate running.  Hate.  When I’m home in NY, if I must run, I run at night.  After dark.  When I can be anonymous, invisible.  And the dark is just an added comfort, because let’s call a spade a spade here – no one in NYC is looking anyway.  Which is good for me, because I’m the world’s dorkiest, slowest, loserest runner ever, period. 

If you’ve been following, you know that anonymity is not an option for me here.  Whether in Kigutu or in Bujumbura, running involves going outside the gate.  Where I am a spectacle.  In reading my posts, you may think I exaggerate this whole mzungo thing for dramatic effect (I would think that as a reader), but the reality is, it is exactly as I describe.  I asked a Burundian colleague recently why we are stared at so diligently – he thinks, then guesses: “Maybe it’s their only opportunity to see one?”

As an aside, some colleagues here recently told me that when they were little, they thought white people got hurt very easily – like, if someone simply touched us, we would develop a huge bruise or worse.  Thin skin, they thought.  I love this.

So, running has obvious drawbacks.  The earlier I go, the more anonymous I could be, but that’s entirely relative; there are always people out – lots of people.  And I refer you back to my earlier comment about getting up early.  Ahem.

Our rocky, dusty, diveted road in Bujumbura.

As well, I can only go so far once I leave the gate – I can’t just wander off, there are limits.  And in Bujumbura, the terrain on our neighborhood roads is comprised of rocks lodged into hardened mud, rich with grooves and divets - a less than ideal running surface.

But maybe there are ways around this, I think.  At Kigutu, I decide I’ll run up to the water tower and back down and do this a few times.  This is inside the compound, and no one is really back there.  Perfect.  But it’s muddy and slippery and I lose my footing more than once.  As I envision an imminent muddy faceplant, I decide this has the potential to really ratchet up my dork factor, and maybe also cause injury, so I consider a plan B.  At the top of the hill, there is some grass in front of the water tower, in a bit of a clearing.  Sprints, I decide!  I’ll run back and forth, like in lacrosse practice.  When I was 17.  Awesome.  Only, it’s just as muddy and slippery at the top.  I manage to keep steady – for three lengths.  On the fourth, I wipe out.  Hard.  Picture sliding into home base.  Only not like that at all.  So I’m now muddy, wet, and it sort of hurts.  I casually pop up and look around, evoking Danny Zuko trying to keep cool after a digger at track tryouts.  I think I’m alone, so I’m just going to go with that.  I calmly gimp down the hill, and go shower, defeated.   The large bruise on my hip kindly waits a day to form.  Thin skin.   

Option 2:  Yoga.  Certainly I can figure out how to do some sweaty yoga; this will cure my need for a fitness fix.  I find a website, download some routines (no easy task with our bandwidth), and have a plan.  My first go, I happen to be up early enough to hitch on with Claire.  We are in Bujumbura this day, and our house has a lovely large tiled porch with tables and loungey furniture – this area is in fact our workspace when we are working here in town.   But this early morning, we push some of the furniture out of the way, and set up her computer with a video.  Now we are swinging our arms, squatting and twisting, and holding warriors in the middle of our housemates’ morning activities (VHW workers are early birds), as they step over us, scooch around us, and generally wonder what this is all about.  One thinks we’re both on the floor looking at him in the kitchen during our closing twists on the mat; he begins to approach to ask what we need.  Awkward.

Another attempt was sunset yoga up in Kigutu – the sunsets are beautiful over the DR Congo, so I am pleased with this plan.  I find a corner of the porch that acts as the triage area for the clinic, but is now quiet in the late afternoon; I tuck in, inconspicuous.  I start my routine.  Halfway through, in mid Warrior II, I notice a group of ladies and their small children, en route up the path from the garden, who have stopped and are staring, transfixed, at the mzungo flailing her arms and intermittently standing like an ill-formed statue.  What on earth is she doing.  They remain a long time; I am astounded by their stamina.  They eventually tire of this and move on.  In the meantime, various flocks of my modest Burundian colleagues are walking back and forth behind me, as my down-dog and happy baby greet them emphatically.  Again, awkward. 

The triage porch.

A third attempt – again with Claire before breakfast on the aforementioned triage porch – finales with one of the maintenance staff mopping around us.  Any closer and my mat could have doubled as a slip-n-slide.  This is not quite working for me.

I seek out a little spot up on the site of a new construction project – beautiful view, and only within eyeshot of the kitchen staff.  I’ll let them laugh at me, I like them.  But it’s covered in cement dust and really just unmanageable.  Fail.  My friend Arnaud suggests a patch of grass past a small tree outside the dining area of our residence.  I’ll have to do this other than at mealtimes, so I choose sunset again.  But it’s not really flat, so the balance poses are hardly balanced.  I fall over.  A lot.  I’m sure there is an audience somewhere.   

The neighborhood pool, as seen from our balcony

Eventually I’ll find my groove (just in time to come home?).  But I'm acutely aware of how something that is mindless and effortless at home has proven to be a daily challenge here.  The occasional lap swim at the public pool near our Bujumbura house, or a brave and determined power walk through the neighborhood - well before dark - peppered with cautious greetings to every single person I pass, especially the giggling children (in my flip flops, btw, as my Asics, while now very clean, were also very wet after our house guy took the initiative to wash them) – these will have to suffice as supplements for yoga, which is now resigned to the embarrassment of spectators as my eagle doesn’t flow so smoothly into Warrior III, or as my side crow ends with my cheek meeting the ground rather suddenly.  

All this is coupled with the fact that the whole premise of exercise feels very strange here.  Many here have to walk miles, up or down hilly roads or paths, with large loads on their heads, to reach their homes or marketplaces or hospitals or churches or water.  Many can't afford any type of transportation so they are left with no choice.  I've seen people sweating and huffing while pushing heavily-loaded bicycles up steep hills.  People carrying furniture on their heads.  Tiny children helping their parents with the head-top load.  You don't see many overweight Burundians - their modest diet combined with the fact that daily exercise is a necessity keeps them not worrying about their physiques.  That said, there are running groups, so I suppose in Bujumbura it's not such a foreign prospect, but in Kigutu, it just feels indulgent, when the same people watching me exercise, later see me pile into the VHW vehicle on Fridays to head down mountain to Buj.  A strange contrast that makes me slightly uneasy.  But all that as it is, I still need to exercise.  

I’ve shared that living here has forced me to become quickly inured to many things – cold showers, bugs everywhere, constant bad belly, to name just a few.  So I add one more to the list ... embracing my epic proportion dork factor in front of an ever-present audience of people who are equally perplexed by mzungos as by their strange exercise practices.  This is just a fact of life here.  So I resolve to channel my inner African ... and grow a thicker skin.