Feinstein Care Package!

Thank you to everyone at The Feinstein Institute of Public and Community Service at P.C. for your endless love and support. We are so happy to have shared your spirit of community and intentional living in Amani House in Dar Es Salaam. I'm sure you'll welcome Beth back with loving arms! Thanks for forming us, reading our blogs, sending e-mails and challenging us when that was necessary!

almost one year

I don’t mean for this blog to become a running journal, but I do think that my running has provided a unique lens through which to view this experience. . .

When I first arrived in Dar, I knew that I needed to run to stay physically healthy, emotionally balanced and mentally alert; what I didn’t know was that my comfort level with running would reflect my comfort level in my new home. At first, I ran a few laps around the Loyola campus each evening- enough for the physical, mental, emotional health I was seeking and not much more. I stayed in my comfort zone, which made sense. Everything else I knew and loved had undergone a drastic transformation. I ran for about 20 minutes, stretched, went home and showered. It was enough, but certainly not a challenge; instead, it was a sort of bridge between my two homes, something which remained constant despite the changes happening around and within me. The truth is, I was afraid. Afraid of getting lost, getting tired, not being able to communicate effectively and I just really did not want to wake up at 5:00 a.m. to beat out the harsh sun and ‘hide’ my whiteness in the veil of pre-dawn darkness.

For whatever reason, with each retreat we went on, I felt a little more confident running in a new place. Maybe it was the open space of the retreat’s location, the ocean at the end of the run, or the community of the other JVs running on a similar schedule, but with each retreat, I became a little more comfortable in my skin and sneakers. In August, we (as a whole community) made the commitment to try to train for and run the Dar Half Marathon to take place on December 8th. I had run one half marathon before and knew that I was capable, but was still a little nervous about the logistics. How would I figure out exactly how far I ran each day? How would I map out and time my long run? How would I cross-train? Could I really wake up at 5:00 a.m. 5 days/week? How will I do all of this without an ipod to distract me? But, thankfully, I put my controlling/planning-obsessed self aside(I’ve been getting better at this, by the way) and trusted that with a little bit of effort, a mental commitment to waking up before the sun, the support and encouragement of a community running towards the same goal, and a little grace from God, it would work out.  

I needed a different route, though. I did not like the one we had been using. It didn’t work for me; maybe it was a mental block, maybe there’s some kind of negative subconscious association I had with this one particular route, I have no idea, but whatever the reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to wake up to run this one particularly bleak route. I had let this mental block keep me from running any kind of long distance for a while- I stayed in my comfort zone at Loyola. But then, one day, as if a switch had been flipped, I suddenly realized, I didn’t have to run that route just because it was the one everyone else was using. I can turn right at the main road instead of left. It was as simple as right instead of left. So, the next morning, I did just that, I turned right when I intersected Old Kigogo Road- I passed Loyola, passed the parish, passed the bus stand, passed the homes of neighbors and friends, crossed the river which floods when it rains and just kept running. There was a series of hills and curves, which made it a decidedly more difficult route, but it was also WAY more interesting- challenging, yes, but definitely not boring and bleak. Each night, before I went to bed, I found myself looking forward to waking up before the sun and running up and down the hills, around the curves and through our neighborhood.

Sometimes, it really does just take a change in perspective- a mental commitment, the support of others and the grace of God to take on a new challenge, to see the world in a  new, fresh way. I should mention two developments in the course of this training- 1. my tried and true running watch, a Christmas gift from my brother about 3 years ago, died(a slight bump in the road) 2. Kathleen received a very useful Garmin running watch which mapped your distance, alerted you to a change in pace and probably did a million others things I couldn’t figure out (Thank you, Mr. Kardos). These developments balanced each other out. While I now had seemingly no accurate way to gauge the distance of my run by the time it took me to run to a certain point and back, Kathleen was able to tell me exactly how far each of the landmarks was and even let me borrow it to pace myself and map out a longer route. In my detachment from technology, my needs were provided for. 

This morning, I think I ran about 8 miles. When I got out of bed, I made a mental commitment to running a longer distance here than I have yet. I committed to running a little bit slower than I ideally would like, in order to complete the goal of a longer distance, and then I did just that. As I passed my usual turning point and kept running to a new destination on which I had not yet decided, a piki piki(motorcycle) driver idling at the corner, cheered, “Hongera, unaweza, dada!”(Congratulations, you can/are able, sister!). As I passed some women collecting rain water on my way back, they clapped and yelled, “Hongera, Dada!!”(Congratulations, sister!!) I smiled and made an embarrassingly enthusiastic fist pump in their direction. Just after I passed them, one of my students, on her way to Mass, yelled, “Miss Kathryn!! Miss!” and smiled big enough for me to see it from across the street a few hundred meters away. And best of all, as I was on the last leg of the run and feeling pretty strong going up hill, I passed a group of men chanting and running together across the road who changed their chant to, “Kama mzungu, kama mzungu!”(like the white girl, like the white girl). I turned around, smiled and cheered them on. I was challenged, comfortable, safe, strong and supported. I couldn’t have asked for a better run and I’m already planning a longer route for next Sunday.

December 8th, quite fittingly, is also the day the new volunteers arrive. So, we will wake up that morning, run the half marathon as a community, hopefully have a celebratory drink or two, clean the house and then go to pick up our new community mates. As I enter my second year as a JV in Tanzania, I’m feeling challenged, comfortable, safe, strong and supported. 

two new pictures!

one from the shamba visit in June, the other from a recent basketball tournament!

Balance

I want to begin this blog by saying that I am no longer limiting myself to 45 minutes of internet usage each week. 

Some of you may have already noticed the change in my internet activity and some of you may have been the ones who were affected by this choice. I am sorry if anyone felt personally alienated by this attempt to live more simply and more fully present here- that was not the intent, but perhaps a not so positive, yet admittedly foreseeable, consequence. For many different reasons, I have decided not to continue to limit myself in such definite terms. While I did use that time for the purpose I intended (“In this time, I plan to write more letters and make more intentional attempts to be present in this place and this community. I will spend more time praying for those I love and working on my relationship with God.”), I also realized that there is a sustainable pace which may be more flexible for each week, each day or each month of this two year marathon.

Recently, my cousin sent Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running in a wonderful and generous care package(Thank you, Tricia!!). I have to admit that I have not yet finished it, and therefore hesitate to quote it without knowing the work in its entirety, but I have already connected with his story, his commitment to running and the way running shapes his mindset(or vice versa). As he talks about his weekly mileage, pace and approach, he writes, “ As long as I can run a certain distance, that’s all I care about. Sometimes I run fast when I feel like it, but if I increase the pace I shorten the amount of time I run, the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly.” I’ve realized that this is the kind of balance I was seeking out in attempting to limit my internet usage. If I increase my speed each day, I can decrease the distance. I can pace myself each day, week, month, allowing for enough energy, patience and generosity to wake up refreshed and excited for the next day to begin.

As my responsibilities at school increase and diversify and as our community continues to transition, it’s not easy to always ‘stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write, run, work, give, love, teach more.’ It is definitely my tendency to give more to each day than is healthy for my relationships or than allows for a proper amount of sleep. I have noticed, though, that I have found a much better and healthier balance here than I have in the past. Yes, hard work, determination and being conscientious are valuable and admirable qualities, but wearing oneself too thin, becoming irritable and judgmental due to a lack of balance are not attractive or healthy qualities and, unfortunately, they are the ones which appear in me when I can’t find that balance. So, my internet ‘limit’ was an attempt to find that balance to prevent me from becoming the irritable and judgmental Katie which I try to avoid being. But there are other ways of doing this.

This morning, I woke up at 5:15, ran 6 miles in the Dar es Salaam heat at a pace I was happy with, showered, attended a marathon of a Mass(7:00-9:00a.m.) and then continued my day until this point(8:00p.m.). I lived fully and presently and now I am going to stop writing, because I am at the point where I feel like I can write more. Hopefully, this will manifest itself in another blog post in the not too distant future. Happy running! writing! pacing! teaching! living each day to the point you feel like you can live the next with energy, patience and generosity.