So I’ve started to run again. After 9 years of competitive running, I was pretty burned out at first and vowed to never run again. People play a lot of indoor and voli here, so I have plenty of opportunities to get the ants out of my pants. However, for some reason (most likely lack of people and lack of ball) they stopped playing indoor, which is a shame because I love indoor and up until that point it was my game of choice. So I started playing voli exclusively. At first nobody wanted me on their team because I didn’t know how to play, so I just sat and watched, which made me antsy. After a while I learned how to play, and was then better than most because I’m about 5 feet taller than the average Ecuadorian. Now it’s hard for me to play because nobody wants to play against me and lose money (not betting is simply unheard of). So on the days that I can’t persuade anyone to play against me, I just go for a run. I keep it short and easy, partly because I don’t want to ruin my fast twitch muscles for jumping and spiking, and partly because I’m ridiculously out of shape. Anyway, most of the time I go for a run, a group of several little kids tags along. It’s neat because these kids are the coolest ever, but it’s also kind of lame because when they tag along I can’t actually run…some of the kids are like 5 years old.
Anyway, on one such day the kids just wanted to keep going and going. They really wanted to go to Miasi, despite the fact that they kept getting tired and began walking within 5 minutes of starting. This walking was interspersed with 23 seconds of all out sprinting. Also, running to Miasi and back takes me about 45 minutes when I’m alone and going at an easy clip. I told them this. I also told them that even though they were tired now, we would have to walk back just as far as we had come. They were undeterred. They really wanted to go to Miasi and go swimming in the river. I really wanted to make running into a cool adventure and escape from the daily routine for these kids, so I agreed. Oops.
Eventually we did arrive in Miasi, which took a lot longer than I thought it would. But it was totally worth it. I took the kids across this scary bridge, which turned out to be the 3rd world equivalent of a team building high ropes course. Also, on the bridge we came across some dude that had just killed a 3 meter long boa. He was carrying it’s skin, which he had just removed and smelled like the reptile house at the Columbus Zoo. He gave it to me as a gift, so now I have some boa skin. La madre de la casa wants to clean it and hang it up on the wall. It complements my giant fossilized shells that I picked up earlier. Maybe one day ill have enough cool stuff to open an emporium.
But I digress. We went swimming. But I told the kids we had to get moving soon because it would be dark in an hour, and we had an hour and a half walk ahead of us. My bad. The kids said they were fine to run, but after about a minute it was clear that they weren’t. I felt like an idiot. As the one somewhat responsible quasi adult in the group I let a bunch of 5 year olds make the decisions, and I believed them when they told me they could handle the running. Lesson learned.
So we were walking back. I want to say right now that these kids are freakin troopers. Never once did they complain or ask for a juice box, oreo cookies, or if we could go through a McDonalds drive through. However, they were getting tired, and I was a little frustrated at myself for letting this happen. But…I managed to turn it into one of the more beautiful moments of my time so far. We were walking back over rolling hills into a 360 degree jungle sunset and I was taking turns carrying the little tykes on my back, and they were taking turns carrying the giant snake skin.
With about 15 minutes of walking left, the last bus of the night came, which agreed to carry us for free. It was packed, so I pushed the kids in then hung out the door as the tall grass along side of the road whipped me in the face as we went zooming along, a penance for being stupid. I returned all the kids safe and sound… the perfect ended to a very cool experience.