Emmanuel is no bigger than me. Seems like a quiet, 19 or 20
year old boy, who works at the guesthouse I’m staying at. At least he seems
rather shy if you talk to him, but when he goes around the complex mopping or
gardening, he is in his own little world, singing unrestrained to his
headphones like nobody’s around.
During the week, the other people who stay at this guesthouse,
many foreigner aid workers, out of this place early. My schedule has typically
been meetings with the partners in the afternoons, which leaves me the morning
to myself to work on research documents and such around here. So I work in the
charming terrace and have taken to starting up conversation with Emmanuel as he
comes and goes from his housekeeping. He noticed that I’ve been going out
before breakfast to do a little running, so he asked me about it, and then told
me he goes running every morning at 3:00am.
“3:00 am? Why?”
“Well because I have to work early”
“I would go with you but…Can’t you go in the evening?”
“I work in the evening!”
There are other ladies who work here who were in on this
conversation and helped Emmanuel figure out that if he got up at 3:00, and did
a couple of hours of work, then we could run at 5:00 and he’d be back in time
to help with the breakfast.
Oh boy. 5:00? Now it was morning when this conversation
happened, and by evening I wasn’t sure if this was actually going to happen.
But, what the heck. I set an alarm for 5:00. Just for kicks.
I woke up, then turned over to fall back asleep. But from my
room on the third floor I could hear this rhythmic pattering down on the
terrace. I looked out my window, and there is Emmanuel, jump-roping like a madman.
As fast as he possibly can, then he stops, then he goes again as fast as he
possibly can. Is this his normal routine, or is he just killing time waiting
for me? I say hello to him from my window. Now I’ve gotta go.
By the time I got dressed and downstairs Emmanuel was tying
his running shoes and we were off. We still had a good 30 minutes before the
sun came up. “Let’s go to the campus,” he said. The University of Lomé was
about a 20 minute run from the guesthouse, and we were off by 5:20.
We were keeping a pretty good pace, and I was happy to have
found a running buddy. Of course, no one can replace Shaka (I remember that
first ( http://em-mali.blogspot.com/2008/09/running-partner.html ) and longest run (http://em-mali.blogspot.com/2010/05/it-had-been-talked-about-so-much-it-had.html) with him
like it was yesterday). But its good to have someone like this around. I learned that Emmanuel went to bed at 11, and
typically likes to get up early- today he was up at 1:00am. Crazy fool! He says
sometimes when he is tired he goes to bed at 8:00 and then gets up at 3:00. When
we got to the University, many others were running a big loop around the
campus. By 6:00 am there were about 150 college students running
in a group. Emmanuel got really excited when he saw them, so we joined.
Now when I say running, well, we definitely dropped the
pace. The entire group was running in sync, militant, at a pace no faster
than walking. Somebody kept beat with a cowbell. As time went on, and the sun
came up, and the rhythm of the run built more and more layers. First, people
started clapping in rhythm, a bit later, a call-and-response chant, then a
song, then two, then three-part harmonies to the song, along with the clapping,
the cow-bell, the call of the leader, and the patter of feet.
Emmanuel is having the time of his life, singing, running,
blending in with the college crowd he never had the opportunity to be a part
of. Of course I didn’t blend in at all. And people took to making sure I
learned the words of the song and sang them out loud. There were quite a number
of girls in the group though too, pleasingly.
We did a couple more laps then ran back. “They do this every Saturday morning! It’s so encouraging!” says Emmanuel. When we got back to the guest
house, the front door hadn’t been opened yet. We rang the bell and one of the
housekeeping ladies opened it. She squealed seeing us both there, sweaty from
the morning humidity. By the time I was showered and downstairs for breakfast, Emmanuel
was already sweeping the terrace, singing along to his headphones.
“I didn’t know you ran like that” he said. We had
done about 8 miles, all but those middle two at a good place.
I laughed, returned the compliment, and asked him what time
church was on Sunday.
“6:00 am, 8:00, or 11:00. I go to the 6:00. “ Of course.
He sensed my lack of enthusiasm, and said, “We can go at
8:00.”
Ok.
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