some pictures of twister fun!







Really cool sky one night that I tried to capture...not so much


Marathon route
PC hasn’t said a word about it yet but I think the basketball court is fully funded! My mom, the best PCV ever, called me 2 days ago saying the website says it’s funded. AWESOME. They had predicted 6 months to fill one that large but my family and friends did it in 2.5 months, very impressive guys, you rock. We’ll see how long it takes PC to get me the money but hopefully we can get going on this.
Between that and the talk of the visitors’ center and sign boards it’s very exciting at site. A lot of PCVs say how much I’m doing at site but really in a day about all I do is a few hours of work and weave a lot. (I should be starting my next pattern within a week.) People back home funded the court and NCRC is funding the visitors’ center, I’m just the bridge.
Last week was no running water, this week looks like no running water and no power, gotta love dry season coming back. Now with the marathon out of the way I got my bike fixed up and can start lifting again. I’m working on planning a bike ride through Togo into Benin and back but working out the details is pretty hard here. We gotta start traveling because we’re almost ½ done with our service.
Mukaila’s going to visit a friend of the guy I replaced in Washington this January and he’s really pumped about that. I can’t wait until he sees snow. Some of his questions are pretty awesome.
Under 20 World Cup is going on and the Black Satellites, our team, are doing great so far. They just whopped England 4-0. The TV hut was bopping. They won the African Continent earlier this year in some thrillers; they’re a fun team to watch.
Another month down and another record month of sales. The festival helped that however. Hopefully we can keep this up into the tourist off season.

If you were wondering about the marathon here’s my thoughts, it’s long. I put it separate so only people who really wanted to read it would have to:
Running your first marathon in Africa probably isn’t the best idea ever. Despite being a quick twitch athlete (sprinter) I think I trained pretty well with my long weeks of 20 and 22 miles. I was aiming for under 4 hours. We woke up at 3am and eventually ended up at the start line around 5 with the race starting at 5:30. It was quite a variety of runners there. Like 10 of us PCVs, Kenyan runners, Ghanaians, US marines and some expats. It started pretty late with the African sun already up, not good. It was delayed because they didn’t have water ready yet, also not good.
We started off and I settled in about middle of the pack. About 5 mins in I was running with a cute PCV from Mali and she had this satellite watch that told you your mile split. She ran in college and we were at a 8:30. I held that for my 20 miler and it hurt so bad so I knew I wouldn’t make it for 26.2 miles. Push your body to try to stay with cute girl or drop back and play it safe…Rower Dan wouldn’t have thought about it and stayed with her but I told her cya later and dropped back. A German tried to stay with her and I passed him about an hour later, he finished a long time after me.
Most of the run I was completely by myself which I’m told isn’t normal. How do I know what is normal? It’s my first one. Our veterans were not happy with the marathon and it’s very randomly and misplaced KM markers (not miles), drastic ups and downs and obstacles, lack of food (I had 2 halves of bananas the whole run), the hills, heat, lack of direction, and it’s course which lead us through a developing nations capital without closing anything. Dodging tro-tros, venders, and women wider than buses in Accra is a rough way to end a marathon. Also pacing yourself with KMs is much harder than miles. I did the math in my head and knew I had to do 5:40 KMs but try multiplying 27 x 5.40 then convert it to hours and mins after 3 hours of running.
About half way through I felt great, like really great, I had paced myself and passed a lotta people that went out too fast. I don’t think I picked it up but I had long given up on even looking at the wrong markers or my clock. A few kms later I was passing guys on their 17th marathons who said this was by far the worst one ever, thanks guys, very motivating. The whole time I’m expecting Kimmie, our running pro, to pass me with a smile on her face telling me to keep it up. After ages between markers I come up to one that seems way too far from the finish and they only hand me ½ a cup of water. I need electrolytes or something and I’m out of the amazing GU packs. I’m slowing down and hurting like crazy but still passing people and turn a corner and there’s Andrew, a PCV whose goal was 3 hours a ways ahead but barely moving. Catching him had to be the most hilarious site.
We were only 2 white people in the packed streets of Accra and our bodies are cramping and we can barely move. Eventually I catch up with him and I’m dieing, like chest cramping, worst pain ever dieing, but going faster than he is. We’re both competitive and we look at each other. Then my leg massively cramps again and I say “Let’s walk” something I never thought I’d say but I had no choice, my body was done. He was like “Thank God” and we started the most painful and humbling hour of my life. We were 3:32 into it and had we continued running at our average pace would have been done in 28 minutes.
Walking sounds easy but we could barely do that. Every once in a while we would try to “shuffle” but one of us would pull up with a cramp. The KMs seems like an eternity and the streets were packed. I had nothing left. The thing was everyone else must have died too because I think a total of 3 people passed us in over an hour of walking. We turned a corner and could see a far ways and couldn’t see the finish, horrible. Not too much farther there was a hidden turnoff and Julie and Andrea were there cheering for us. These are my only 2 friends within hours of my site, so we do everything together. Julie yells “Only 10 miles left guys!” and I gave her the bird. Just before that we had started shuffling again so when we passed them we picked it up. It was the last like .1 mile and I’m a sprinter so we sprinted. In rowing we used to do 7 ups, which was up a beat every 7 strokes so we did that with steps and crossed the line together looking strong with a time of 4:43. We came in 40th place, 3rd of Ghana PCVs. They got my numbers and the cheering section came to take care of me. Sinae, Julie, Maria, Andrea, and Marcus all took care of me while the rest worked on others finishing. I couldn’t breathe without pain. The rest of the PCVs started to trickle in. When Kimmie came in we knew she had been hurting, she was 1.5 hours over her previous worst time.
At first I was pissed and swore I’d never do one again. That night I partied it off and was the only runner still going somehow at 1 am. The next day we were in tons of pain but I was feeling better. I asked Andy, who had to stop to use the lack of facilities twice why we ever did it and he said, “I dunno but I’m not gonna let Africa beat me like that, I’m gonna get it next year.” I won’t make any promises but I think I will too.
I gotta thank Jen Shen, KTP, and Anne Varner. Without their help I never would have came close to finishing.