And we huffed and we puffed and we trudged up the hills. One does not conquer the steep hills of Kigali coming from the flatlands of Florida. However, over a two-month adjustment period in-country, one can slowly adjust to the mile-high city and manage to get to the top of one/a few/some of these thousand hills without calf muscles, glutes, hamstrings, and quads screaming out in agony.
"Shut up, legs!", we constantly command, an utterance made famous by one of our favorite professional cyclists, Jens Voigt.
Our training began with our daily walking expeditions throughout the city soon after our arrival and before our purchase of Frankie (our RAV4). As first time visitors and residents of this city of one million people, we found the navigation challenging, even with our somewhat dependable Google Maps app.
Walking in Rwanda
The navigation difficulties are the result of Kigali's street-naming nomenclature. They are named by a combination of letters and numbers. Similar to the naming conventions in the States, there are three categories: roads (RD), avenues (AV) and streets (ST). However, roads are national roads that connect the capitol city of Kigali with provinces and the international airport. Avenues connect districts or sectors. Streets go to specific neighborhoods. This seems to make sense until one factors in all the roundabouts and the combination of letters associated with the roads, avenues, and streets. For example, there are roads, avenues and streets in Kigali beginning with KN, KG, or KK depending on the district name: Kigali Nyarugenge, Kigali Gasabo, or Kigali Kicukiro. So what is our address? We are on the corner of KG 666 ST and KG 688 ST.
Getting lost is a given in Kigali, but this has given us the opportunity to strengthen our glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calf muscles during our two or three hour walks around the city. Moreover, it prepared us for our chimp and gorilla trekking adventures in November and December of this past year.
Observations on walking in Rwanda:
The main mode of travel here in Rwanda is foot power. Pedestrians walk everywhere. In the few cities, there are sidewalks mostly in the downtown areas. In Kigali, sidewalks extend into the various neighborhoods along avenues and streets. In towns and villages, there are very few, if any, sidewalks and people walk on the sides of the roads and in the streets.
Rwandans rarely eat or drink (or smoke) on the streets, so when exercising outside, we inconspicuously sip liquids from our water bottles.
Most school children walk to school. School buses exist but, as a Rwandan-American friend relates, he walked ten kilometers to and from his primary and high schools as a kid growing up in the south of the country.
Rwandans young and old seem to handle the hills better than we muzungus (foreigners). Practice makes perfect?!?
IRONMAN Training and Kigali International Peace Marathon
Although our walking excursions continue to be a part of our exercise routine during the week, our sports training ramped up in November when we joined Waka Fitness, a gym close by our residence. The reason that we joined so late was because originally, when we moved into our apartment, there had been an arrangement with our apartment management and Waka Fitness in which members of Waka Fitness had free access to the swimming pool. This meant that we, as residents of Rubangura Apartments, would reciprocally have free access to the amenities at Waka Fitness.
In early October, when we showed up at Waka with our Rubangura-issued membership card, we were informed that the contract between the two entities was in negotiation and that free Waka membership for residents of the Rubangura Apartments would not be honored until a decision was made one way or the other. We had hoped for a positive answer as the membership fee for full access to the facility (including classes) was 60,000 RWF per month per person (or over $70 a month). Yikes!
We finally bit the bullet, and in early November joined Waka. Having wisely decided not to purchase a bicycle, Mark has been able to do workouts on the stationary bicycle, followed by a run on the treadmill - a 'brick' in triathlon parlance - and finishing up with core and upper body exercises on the equipment in the gym. Each week the workouts increase in length. This is all in preparation for Mark's Chattanooga IRONMAN 2017 event on September 24th., his ninth IM. We have attempted training in our pool, but have given up as the pool length is short and the water is cloudy obscuring the bottom and sides. This excuse for not swimming has worked so far and as anyone who knows us will attest, any excuse for not swimming is a valid one!
Another event we are training for is the Kigali International Peace Marathon. The 13th running of the event will be on May 21st. The race begins at Amahoro (i.e., Peace) Stadium and does two loops for the full marathon and one loop for the half marathon. There is also a 5 km race. Last year over 4,000 athletes from over 30 countries participated with the Kenyons, not surprisingly, dominating the race. Water stops are every 5 kilometers!!!
Mark is training for the full marathon, while Sheila will attempt the half. On two separate occasions, we have walked legs of the course which made us wonder how anyone in his right mind (besides a Kenyon, Rwandan, or Ethiopian) would sign up for this race.
Below is a Strava graph of one six-mile loop in the course. At one point, there's a 200-meter climb that will surely cause hearts to flutter, legs to tremble, and heads to spin.
Before arriving in Rwanda, we had read about a one-kilometer "flattish" course to run on about a mile from our apartment referred to by local runners as the Kigali Park roundabout. Ten times around the circle equates to a 10 km run. There is a slight rise on the circuit and the streets leading into it are climbs so hill work is included for those so inclined (pun intended). A grassy park serves as the centerpiece of this roundabout. Along the circle, at any time of the day or early evening, one will find uniformed female park and street cleaners pulling weeds or sweeping the sidewalk as joggers pass by.
Observations on exercising in Kigali:
Most females - both locals and foreigners - in Kigali dress very conservatively when running on the roads. Stretch pants to the knees (or below the knees) seem to be the norm in place of running shorts. Rwandan males wear exercise pants. Only boys and foreigners wear shorts.
Running in the early morning or after 7 p.m. is preferable as pedestrian and vehicular traffic is not as heavy as later on in the day.
Saturday and Sunday mornings are likewise better days/times for exercising (even at the gym).
Sports drinks and sports bars can be found in the high-end supermarkets - Simba and Nakumatt, among others - and in Waka.
Sports shoes can be found in the various outdoor markets.
Team Africa Rising
The Rwandan national cycling team's headquarters is located in Musanze, a town located at the foothills of the Virunga Mountains in the Northern Province of Rwanda. We accidentally came across the Africa Rising Cycling Center the weekend in December when we went gorilla trekking. The Rwandan national cycling team is called Team Africa Rising. As avid cyclists, we had read that the team was headquartered in Musanze and had hoped that we might encounter team cyclists on the road but the discovery of the center was a pleasant surprise.
We decided to visit the premises and talk to the people there about cycling in Rwanda. Team Rwanda Cycling was founded by Jock Boyer in 2007, and the sport of cycling has grown exponentially since. Ask the locals about sports and they will tell you that their national basketball team is OK; their soccer team is OK......BUT...Rwandan's cycling team is GREAT! This should come as not surprise given the country's high elevation, monster hills, and walking/cycling habits.
Kimberly Coats, the Director of Marketing and Logistics for the team, graciously gave us a tour of the site telling us about the team, its brief history, its riders, coaches, and races.
Rafiki, the team's mechanic, showed us the workshop replete with state-of-the-art Pinerelllos. Outside, about six riders and their head coach, Sterling Magnell, were preparing to head out on their time-trial bikes for a three-hour training ride in preparation for the African Continental Championship Men's Team Trial in February in Luxor, Egypt. We later learned that the the Rwanda men's team took home a bronze medal in the Team Time Trial covering the 57.8 kilometer course in 1:12:27. This was Rwanda’s first ever team medal at this annual event and the second in local cycling history after the 2015 bronze at the All African Games in the road race.
Kimberly introduced us to the kitchen staff and we feasted our eyes on the gargantuan bowl of salad for lunch for the cyclists after their training ride. Kimberly told us that in the beginning the riders were not accustomed to eating salads and were somewhat resistant. The typical Rwandan meal consists of starches accompanied by...starches. Within a short time, Kimberly said that team members eagerly awaited the healthy variety of salads at lunch and dinner.
Besides addressing the nutritional needs of the riders, there is a need for these young riders to understand and speak English. For the most part, they are recruited in their teens from small villages and many of these talented young cyclists are barely literate, resulting in English language training challenges. We discussed volunteering our time to do English language training for Team Africa Rising, and Kimberly seemed receptive to the idea, but up to now, timing has not worked out.
In addition to developing a strong national men's team, in August of 2016, Team Africa Rising officially announced the launch of a women’s Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) professional team. This team consists of women from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
The following 9-minute video focuses on walking and running in Kigali, and the Rwandan national cycling team, based in Musanze, a city in the north of the country just south of the Virguna Mountains. The sound track is a popular song - Nturengaho - by Derrick Irambona, a former high school classmate of one of our students from last semester, Emmanuel Simparimiheto. When we first heard the song on KISS 102.3 FM, a very popular radio station here in Kigali, we liked it, located the online site, downloaded the file, and commented that we would like the English translation, as one did not exist. Emmanuel spoke with Derrick and, voila, the lyrics appear below. A love song by a singer with a beautiful voice. We hope you agree!
My love,
Come closer,
I want to tell you something from my heart.
I always tell you that I love you,
No one is like you,
Nothing can make me forget you.
My love is like the beating of my heart...
I can't stop...stay there.
There...there...don't leave,
This is where my heart beats from...there...
Touch me, touch me, baby,
Right there, don't go away.
Baby, I don't feel at ease,
Give me your hand, baby.
Your tears won't let me sleep...
Listen, when you are sad, I am, too,
I am sad and suffering inside...ooooh...suffering!
I love you, baby.
Suggested Reads
This semester has given us a wonderful opportunity to explore various genres of literature. We are teaching a course called LIT 103 Introduction to Literature in English to first-year students in the College of Education, University of Rwanda. Here are two works of African literature we are using in our class. The first is a short story and the second is a one-act play.
A baby’s small open mouth and a drop of liquid. A baby’s warm arm and a small injection. This excerpt is from Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's short story entitled "Olikoye." In this tender short story, Chimamanda imagines a health minister's life through the eyes of a young girl whose father works for him, as he embarks on improving health care for Nigerians. Click HERE to read the story.
The second piece is powerful one-act play by Yasmine Beverly Rana and is entitled Fauna and Blood and was inspired by Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi’s installation “The Roof Garden Commission” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The two characters in the play, Dia and Aisha, are on the roof garden having a conversation about the exhibit which is an 8,000 square foot terrace splattered with paint the color of dried blood. Click HERE to read the play.
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