Doing what I can

After totally tanking a few weeks ago and taking 10 days off totally, I’ve been able to run 3 times this week. I meant to run yesterday morning – it hadn’t rained in a good 36 glorious hours – but I had some sort of stomach trouble and didn’t want to risk being far from my bathroom.

But it seems to be working to just tell myself I need to get out and run, just do what I can. After all, 4 miles 3 or 4 times a week is better than 5 miles once. And tomorrow I’ll go at least 6 and maybe more, depending on  how “gung ho” I feel. There’s this point after crossing the first river where the path gets flooded. Some days I’m up for getting through it, some days, aack, it just gets me down. But living within a circumference of 3 miles definitely makes me stir crazy. I remember the day when I was in Cameroon that I realized that one thing I value very, very highly is mobility. The ability to get around. When I moved from PRTC out in the village, where I was 5k from the road, to Bamenda town, one cause of intense relief for me was that I could get around. I could go anywhere I wanted to. I could catch a cab or a bus or a moto and go wherever. When I was coming to the Solomon Islands, one friend warned me that other friends of hers had felt claustrophobic on a small pacific island. At the time I thought, “claustrophobic? With the entire Pacific Ocean right there?” Yea, well, the ocean requires a boat which I don’t have. And hiring one is very expensive. So, now I know.

The rain is now having an impact on the island in some striking ways. The ground is so saturated that trees – even some rather large trees – are falling. A mango tree fell sometime Sunday night around the government houses. It completely blocked the path and took down power wires, but amazingly it fell straight between two houses, hitting neither. In Buala village there was a large landslide on what had been a vegetation covered hill. And yet, it can rain all night, be hot and sunny during the day, and then many places can be bone dry by the end of the day. I’m becoming quite aware of the difference between different types of dirt. Grey sandy dirt dries very quickly, particularly with heat. Red, claylike dirt never seems to dry. Then there is the swampy, bog-like black dirt that falls somewhere between those two.

I’ve signed up for the World Wide Festival of Races Half Marathon yet again: http://www.worldwidefestivalofraces.com

I am leaving the Solomon Islands mid-April and intend to be back in Africa somewhere by the beginning of August at the latest. I’m not sure what is next yet, though. So, I don’t know where I’ll be running the Worldwide Half, but wonderfully, I don’t need to know that now!

Help me win by dream photo assignment

I've just entered a contest to win funding to do my dream photography assignment -- documenting the lives of LGBT Africans. Part of the criteria is how many votes your idea gets. Please go vote for me!

http://www.nameyourdreamassignment.com/the-ideas/tlongacre/revealing-the-lives-of-lgbt-africans/

Videos posted

I’ve just posted 4 videos I made from here in Buala on my Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlongacre/

Check them out!

You'd think I was falling apart

Well, I only ran twice last week. On the up side, my feet are hurting less, so maybe running is a factor. And I did do 4 sessions of yoga, so I wasn’t totally out of touch with my body.

But I was having a very bad week and then Friday morning, when I was going out to get some water from my tank, I slipped on the stairs and fell pretty badly. I thought I might have broken my arm. Thought it enough that I walked over to the hospital after a morning meeting and got an x-ray. But no break. (Slightly disappointed, like I was in 4^th grade or something. . .). So my right arm is badly bruised and hurting as is my right calf (every time I go downstairs, I feel it – very tight). Because of that, general laziness, agitation leaning towards depression, I didn’t run Friday, Saturday, Sunday or this morning (Monday). Hmmph.

I need to get out there tomorrow, though. I know where this sort of thing leads and it ain’t pretty. Not pretty at all.

I didn’t do any yoga over the weekend either, so I’ll try to do some of that tonight, just to test and see what really hurts and what is healing.

One thing to share: I have a Nintendo DS Lite which I haven’t really used much. But I was inspired to pull it out the other day and really look at the programs I have. One of the programs I have is Let’s Yoga! And I’ve used it 3 times now and it’s actually quite good as a yoga program. It gives me lots of options, let’s me create my own sequences, and even has a teaching module. Except for the fact that each session begins with “Time to start Yoga!” and ends with “Good job!” (rather than Namaste), it’s pretty good.