Running through Foreign Lands

Yesterday I had a profound realization.  Well, a couple, and all in the span of 38 sweaty minutes.  It was a big run for me for a lot of reasons. 

In general, running in Uganda has some element of adventure associated with it.  The roads leave a lot to be desired, when they are there.  There is a constant gaggle (I will get back to gaggles…) of small children running, laughing, pointing, generally creating chaos around you when running.  Often there are myriad wild to semi-tame dogs that take interest in the activity.  There are adults that sporadically take enough interest to cast a lazy call of  mzungu (white guy), and sidelong stare to indicate their general sense that what I am doing defies logic.  Then there are geese.

This is where I go back to gaggles.  On one particular running route that I follow in Hoima, there is a gaggle of geese that torment me.  It started about 3 months ago.  I first came running down there on a rainy morning.  There were two geese, a white goose and a speckled goose.  As I approached them, jogging slowly along, they began to crane their necks and ruffle their feathers.  I moved to the other side of the road and kept going.

The next few runs I didn't see them.  But then, about a month ago, I was running, and as I got to that section of road, there were at least a dozen geese, grazing the road where I was supposed to run.  At first I thought, "they are geese, they should see I am a superior animal, and get out of my way, like chickens do."  This was VERY incorrect.  The geese tightened into a pack, craned their necks, opened their beaks to expose razor-like rows of something akin to teeth (do geese have teeth?) and HISSED at me!  They lifted their wings and jabbed their goose heads toward me.  My heart was racing (I realize writing this how pathetic it is, don't worry).  My heart was racing (I was running after all) and so I darted to the side of the road, and sprinted past them.  I also hissed back.  I don't know, it seemed right at the time.

Then, yesterday, again I was running, and not only did I time my run such that I encountered every school child in Hoima leaving school for the evening, but the geese (more like geese-stapo) were in the road again.  So after enduring 30 minutes of heckling by children (I mean I doubt they are judging me, but I don't speak the local language, and really, they are of course judging the giant white man running nowhere in particular) I got to near the end of my road and again had to meet the geese.  They are intent on adding an additional component to my work outs by adding shots of adrenaline into my runs.  This time, the side of the road was blocked, because someone turned the shoulder of the road into a garden for growing sweet potatoes and cassava.  I couldn't trample the garden.  In my head I imagined running through the garden, killing all the sweet potatoes, and a mother and 14 children all weeping, fists balled up against their eyes, wailing "what's to become of us?"  So I made the choice to run through the geese.  They moved.

So all in all what has happened?  In sum, nothing.  I dealt with running through crowds of curious children and geese.  I saved a Ugandan family from starvation by not trampling their garden due to an unreasonable fear of domestic fowl (someone once told me that geese bite), and I lived another day.  It is often curious running in East Africa.  There is always something that reminds me how excited I am to run when I get back to the US.  At least I can take solace that in Rock Creek Park there will be no attack geese, and the whole city of DC will not be alerted to the fact that one white guy is running.

But really, why does the owner of the geese just let them out like that?