Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Trophy, vomit, and sand . . .


This last Saturday I ran in a 5k race in a place just south of Cairo called Wadi Digla. It's a pretty cool place. It looks like a huge dry riverbed with sandstone cliffs all around it. It was my first time there, but I think I may have to go again some time. Anyway, the race was a fundraiser for a couple of local schools and I thought it was a worthy cause. So I went out there on Satuday morning and ran the race with about 150 other people. Long story short, I won the race and got an awesome plastic trophy! I was actually pretty surprised. A friend of mine was there and got a picture of me crossing the finish line. She's the editor for a local ex-pat magazine and has threatened to put my photo on the cover of next month's issue. Personally, I'm hoping she doesn't! But we'll see . . .

After the race, I wasn't feeling too hot. I thought I might be dehydrated, so I went home and drank some water. I still didn't feel well, so I drank some fruit juice. After that I decided that I'd been resting for long enough, so I went out to visit some Egyptian friends and buy a few things I needed to get. I went to chat with a friend's landlord, who I've gotten to know. He gave me some tea, and was chatting with me about his family. I'd only been there for a few minutes when I started to feel like I was going to toss my lunch. I told him really quickly that I had to go right away. I can't even remember which language I told him in. I kept thinking, don't make a mess in his house! I got two steps out of the door and . . . BLECH!!! All over the street! Yummy! The guy I'd been talking to came out and held my glasses for me. He wouldn't let me clean anything up. Just gave me some water and medicine and sent me on my way. I felt pretty bad. I kept trying to tell him that I'd been sick before I came over to his house. I didn't want him to feel bad or feel like it was his tea that had made me sick. I laughed about it later :)

Oh. I also learned something about running in the desert. For the next couple of days after you run, you find sand EVERYWHERE! It's awesome!

Things here have been going pretty well. Arabic's been going well and has actually been making sense for the last couple of days. I'm heading to Hurghada this weekend to check things out. It's a town on the Red Sea coast, just a little south of the tip of the Sinai penninsula. I'll be there for a couple of days and be back in time for class on Monday morning. Blessings!

3 comments:

  1. Wow,nice trophy. You can totally drink out of it. That's cool.

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  2. hey dave just thought we would let you know that Liam is here you can check out our blog for pics and info uriahandmichaelaking.blogspot.com
    blessings,
    uriah and michaela

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  3. Ha! That's awesome!!! I knew you had potential when we went running in Kenya... well you and Eddy went running, I went panting/coughing/wheezing/gagging... well done friend!

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