Day 14- Run forrest! 10K with the Kinshasa Hash House Harriers

Day 14

I woke up this morning at a leisurely 9.30 and went and ate breakfast out on the veranda, which lovely.  H and I then went to a local market called the Marche de valeur (the value market), more commonly known as the marche des voleurs (the market of thieves- for the extortionate prices they charge you if you don’t haggle). It a cute little place, just an empty plot of land where 100’s of people are selling their art, masks, statues etc. There is a constant chorus of ‘madame regarde’. You really have to haggle, and be persistent but there are a few things I’ll buy when I go back some of the paintings are really cute.

By the time we managed to leave the market I went straight to the grand hotel to join in with the Kinshasa hash harriers. A group of expats that go on fornightly hash in different areas around Kinshasa.  For those of you who don’t know what a hash is it’s basically a long run that has been set out before hand and you run to checkpoints and have to search for the correct trail as they deliberately set ‘false trails’. The hash was by a lake called lac ma vallee that was 40 mins drive, so I jumped in the convoy with a family from Cameroon who had been in Kinshasa for 7 years who were so sweet.

Today there were three flavours   of hash 3k, 5k, or 10k. Out of bravery, or stupidity, I picked the 10k. In the midday African heat. O M G.

Not only was it in the midday heat but it was through jungle, bush and even a river, well a stream but I got wet enough it might has well as been! But inspite of the pain everyone was  lovely cheering each other on and the scenery was so spectacular and felt so good  to be out of the city and running through the countryside, I managed to make it all the way round. At one point we had been running for about 3K and bumped into a local lady who was carrying a massive bag of fire wood on her head. I have no idea where she was coming from or going, but I’m glad we bumped into her, I even manged to pull out my camera in time to grab a pic as I ran.

The funniest thing about the hash is the post hash review. Everyone gets in a big circle with beers, to rehydrate, and sings  songs. The hash ‘virgins’ have to come up and introduce themselves and down a beer as the rest of the group sings, same with the leavers, the hash hero/heroine, and as punishment for anyone found to have taken short cuts. It’s like fresher’s, nothing like introduce a bit of university style drinking to the DRC.

I’m pretty sure they have their own Kangaroo court at somepoint in the year and have their own hash names that you get given for life. Someone today was dubbed shoeless Joe Jackson for turning up in flipflops. Big oops. So now I am pretty broken, a few scratches from running through the jungle, and no doubt sore muscles tomorrow. I came home with some guys and girls from the American embassy who were such fun and great to meet new people, but I  COULD. NOT. WAIT for a shower.

 Got home .................and the water pump was broken. No running water ....now I’m Africa -so instead I jumped in the pool to shower and headed out for a pizza.

Amazing day, so much fun and am now ready for bed!