Marathon March!

Marathon March actually happened a week or two ago, but since nothing has happened since last night and this morning, aside from some sleeping and eating and news reading ("Thousands flee Indonesia volcano," "Chile rescuers work on 'Plan B'," "US economic growth slows to 1.6%," "Algeria's shopping centre revolution").

Random stuff I feel like mentioning before launching into the story, that may or may not end up looking more like a series of bulleted points:

• The time is not actually 5:00 AM. That is the time the computer I am on is set to, but the time is actually 9:00AM. I have not looked at the time that Blogger has been recording as the post time until now, so I don't know what other temporal lies my blog has been telling you
• However, I do know of the following lie: Sometime in the future (I will leave the exact date a surprise) when I predict I will not have had internet access for awhile, you will read a post that was actually written today.

On the morning of Marathon March, I crammed the following into a bag:

• 3 litres of water, divided unequally between three bottles. I added powdered Gatorade to one of the bottles, so .75 litres was actually lemon-lime Gatorade
• my St. Mary's Fencing windbreaker, that is actually not much of a windbreaker but would still keep me dry if it rained. Also, it would deter criminals who could read English and understand that "fencing" involves sword skills
• sunglasses
• sunscreen
• bugspray
• whatever random stuff was already floating around in my bag...cellphone, hand sanitizer, random scraps of paper...

In a separate black plastic bag I carried my lunch. The hotel (sort of) we stayed at was supposed to have packed sandwiches, but instead we received aluminum pans filled with cous cous, vegetables and chunks of meat. It was delicious, but I ended up scooping half of my lunch out from the bottom of the bag.

Then we were crammed into the Peace Corps coaster, dropped off in some village, and photographed in our squeaky clean pre-march attire. Our guides were a couple of current Peace Corps volunteers who had planned out the course. The course would sound much more exciting if I could remember the length of the course or how long it took us.

We walked through the village a little ways, collecting children along the way. Kids would shout "toubab!" then run up and hold our hands. The unlucky kids who didn't get to hold a toubab hand would hold the hand of a kid who was, or the hand of a kid who was holding the hand of a kid who was holding the hand of a kid who was holding one of our hands. I had collected quite a few kids, and they were starting to slow me down, so I was glad when we turned off the road into a field.

We dodged the following obstacles:

• Uncovered wells, occasionally hidden by overgrown grass. I think they use these wells mostly for watering the fields. At least, I really really hope so, because one of the wells contained two dead chickens, according to the person walking next to me. I would not have been able to identify those floating masses as chickens.
• Trenches and whatever the opposite of a trench is. The fields are dug like this: \/\/\/\/\/\/ and in the rainy season the crops are planted on the raised bit and in the dry season in the lowered bit.
• Rice fields. I can now identify a rice field! Maybe. Rice fields were an obstacle in that we were not allowed to trample through them.
• A barbed wire fence. Actually, we did not dodge the fence, because it was quite long and we needed to be on the other side. So we hopped/were-lifted-over-by-someone-taller.
• A lady screaming at us in Mandinka for walking by her rice field and jumping her barbed wire fence

We did not dodge the following obstacles:

• Blisters. I got lovely blisters on my heels (I was not wearing my Tevas, having loaned those to a friend, and also thinking that wearing shoes that covered my toes would be nice) and then, when I squashed down the back of my shoe so that it became a flip-flop of sorts, I got blisters on the top of my feet. Fun!

And then we came to mud. The mud would have been incredibly glorious if we could have walked through it barefoot, so instead it was only semi-glorious. Also, I became stuck. Incredibly stuck. Stuck to the point of needing to hand my bags to the person behind me, and use my hands to dig away the mud from my right foot and yank it out. During which time my left foot became stuck. So I repeated the process. During which time my right foot became stuck again. I was eventually pulled out and managed to NOT fall face-first despite being convinced I would.

Then we walked along a marshy bit for a while, and then some more mud, and then I forget, and then some more mud. I refused to become stuck again--and succeeded!--but sprinting across mud is quite difficult.

We ate lunch underneath a baobab tree, which I identified from having read The Little Prince and also from those times when people have pointed to a tree and said, "That's a baobab tree!" We also ate Starburst candies and those gummy Coca-Cola candies.

Then it rained, and I put on my jacket. Then it stopped raining and I took it off. Then it rained again and I put it on. Then it stopped and I didn't take it off. But it stayed stopped, so I took it off and it rained again.

Then we reached the river! And because the water was still salty and therefore free of parasite-carrying, freshwater snails, and because I was not aware that there might have been crocodiles, I jumped in. We swam around until the people who would be canoe-ing us to the lodge arrived. Some of the group continued on for the complete march (they canoed past the lodge and then walked back) but for me the cost of aching feet outweighed the benefit of the beautiful view promised with the complete hike. Also, I'd be first in line for a shower.

Mandina River Lodge was wonderful, and I can only imagine what it would be like during the on-season, or whatever you call the non-off-season. There was a swimming pool that was huge and twisted around that we unfortunately could not swim in, due it being filled with rainwater and scum, but it was still awesome looking. And there were rooms that were literally right on the river, mine among them, and some rooms on stilts.

Here's what else I liked:

• the mattress I slept on
• the fact that the British guys who own the place also own a lodge in the Alaskan wilderness
• the mention of crocodiles in the brochure
• the mention of manatees in the brochure
• the healthy, pettable cats wandering about the place
• the heart-shaped rice served with our dinner

The next day we woke up, breakfasted, had a session on solar power, and drove back to training village (with a stop in Brikama so we could buy ataya and sugar for our families).