I’ve talked about how surreal running around ILRI during my lunch break is before. Two or three days a week we go jogging around the countryside surrounding the ILRI campus. Rain or shine, we strap up and run through the little towns of Uthiru and Ndambuini, on through the quiet village of Soweto (no, not the slum in South Africa), and down into a small valley filled with streams, cows, corn fields, and local dudes. You hear people speaking Kikuyu, Kiswahili, Kikamba, and then some little kid yells, “Mzungu!” and you remember, “Oohh shit, I live in Kenya.” I have gotten so used to this life that I do it without even thinking. I know I’ve written a lot over the past two years, so you guys must have some pictures in your head of what my life is like, but I also know that a picture is worth a thousand words.

That is why, for your viewing pleasure, I carried my phone during Wednesday’s run. You can see my buddies Maggie and George running ahead of me, and the long dirt road descending into the valley of corn and cows. Unfortunately I think I messed up my knee during this run, so I’m gonna be taking a few weeks off. I’ve got some ice on it right now, and I got some anti-inflammatory meds from the ILRI pharmacy (I think it is just Ibuprofen, even though I told her to give me “Dawa ya kusukuma maisha… ile ngumu” (literally: drugs to push life… the hard ones). I’m still limping a bit but hopefully I’ll be back in action soon. I was supposed to go ice skating this weekend, but maybe I’ll just have to go (slowly) wander around the second-hand market instead.

Here are some pictures from the route we run: