Leave Running Whitey alone!

This might come as a shock to those of you who know me well: I like to run.

A lot.

In fact, it's become evident over the past years that running is one of the few things that keeps me (mostly) sane [those of you who had the misfortune of being around me for the couple months I spent unable to run due to tearing a ligament in my hip from clotheslining my dumb self off my bike and landing on my U-lock, and had to deal with me being a moody ass for two months time can attest to this assertion].

As I'm sure I've mentioned to many of you, this city leaves a little (lot) to be desired in terms of runability:


Firstly: altitude. Kampala's at about 3900 feet, so the air is definitely a bit thinner than what I'm used to. Not a bad thing, though (my lungs felt great when I ran at home), except for the addition of:

Second: shitty shitty air quality. Dust + smog (emissions controls? Why would we want those? Then my boogers wouldn't be black!) + burning-trash-smoke = might as well wrap my lips around a tail-pipe while I run. Bad enough as it is, but let's not neglect the:

Third: traffic. I swear I have almost been de-elbowed by a matatu-mirror or flat-tired by a boda-boda more times than I want to count. As if my heart isn't already pounding enough while I run, why not tack on a couple near-maiming experiences to REALLY get my adrenaline going? But I can't focus all of my attention on dodging traffic because of:

Fourth: "CHOGM-holes". CHOGM is the biannual (?) Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting, held in a different British Commonwealth country each time. In 2007, Uganda had the misfortune of hosting CHOGM. By all means it certainly COULD have been an excellent opportunity for Uganda to bank on some serious international attention and make some serious infrastructural progress (read: fill potholes), but instead corruption (and its close friend, idiocy) reared its ugly head and excellent methods were invented for pissing away phenomenal sums of money. One of these involved the decision to erect street lights - only, of course, on those streets which the CHOGM-folks would be traversing. Buuuuut they just never made it as far as installing the streetlight. Instead, they just managed to dig a huge number of hugely deep hugely un-marked holes. Now lovingly known as "CHOGM-holes" (physical representations of the holes that money was uselessly thrown into over the whole CHOGM fiasco?). Lest the CHOGM-holes be lonely, there are of course the countless and continuously-multiplying:

Fifth: pot-holes. I've covered these aberrations of street-making in a previous post, so I'll just continue on to:


Sixth: Ugandans who apparently think the acme of humor to be harassing the poor damn running mzungu.
If you live in Kampala, mzungu's, though not necessarily "common", are certainly not a great rarity. And I definitely see Ugandans out for runs. But apparently the combination of mzungu + runner is just... too much NOT to comment on.

I'm out for a damn run. No I do NOT want to:
a) fist-bump you as you sit on your boda-boda.
b) respond to "MZUNGU HOW ARE YOU"
c) confirm my American citizenship
d) have an extended discussion about what you/I think of Obama
e) debate whether Obama is, in truth, a "son of Uganda"
f) watch you run next to me mockingly as you look back at your homeys for approval
g) ride in your taxi (okay... I suppose I can understand this one a little bit: clearly I'm trying to get somewhere quickly, and I suppose a taxi would be a bit easier than running like a doofus)
h) be fodder for whatever jokes you are making to your friends in Luganda (I'm certain at my expense)


Just let me RUN. I promise I'll be much more enjoyable to deal with if you do.

That is all. Until next time,

-Running Whitey.