Down into the Great Rift Valley ... we have all got it working, baby!

Monday January 10th, 2011     DAY TWO

 

RAE Daily Update; posted by Bill Palladino, Executive Director of On The Ground.

 

The high plains of the Entoto Mountains quickly give way to the lush, familiar looking, farmland of Africa's Great Rift Valley.  Our runners spent their second day on the road today with a 28 mile jaunt... downhill.  The miles are beginning to take their toll.  While the runners are all still healthy and positive, let's not kid ourselves, today was their second marathon in two days.  Several of our runners have only run this far once before, let alone days in a row.  This is a time when the team is challenged with either coming together, supporting one another, or risking the chaos of the alternative.

Today, finally, it seemed the team found a window of bandwidth with which to connect back home.  There were a lot of Facebook and Twitter updates this morning, as well as direct blog entries.  Here are some excerpts:

Nigel

Struggling to find much connectivity in Ethiopia but I am pleased to report we are two days into our run and 48 miles (79 KM's) down with a total run time of 9 hours and 23 minutes. We are in the town of Mojo and we have all got it working baby!! Day One we ran 20 miles from Addis Ababa to Debrei Ziet and 28 miles from there to Kokem. Feeling great so far. The people of Ethiopia are fabulous and the kids are unbelievable cheering and running with us in every town.

 

Jamaica

Seems Facebook is the only connection I can get down in Africa right now. Just came back to Addis Ababa for 3 days to film with Seth and May, interview people from Tesfa, and greet the families as they arrive. It has been a whirlwind full of experiences. Today we saw the runners off for their second day, 28 miles, and had an encounter with the Ethiopian Airforce. Note to all those out there, do not film near the base or even stop the car outside of the base, as it is suspicious behavior! Things are all good and well, and we saw the children in MoJo today. They sang songs, danced, performed drama and told us traditional stories of their culture. It was magical.

 

Claire

Sorry many of us haven't been sending a lot, we have very very little downtime, and when we do we're all dying, I fell asleep on my bed after the run still caked with dirt, I was too tired to even shower. I will try really hard to upload pictures tomorrow if I can, oh and we also only have 3 computers with internet (tim, treter, jacob) and they often need the computers.

 

Anyway, the first day of running was much harder than I anticipated, the altitude is a huge factor; it's very difficult to breath, less oxygen is getting to our muscles, and it's much more difficult to stay hydrated.  Each of us completed yesterday and today and are ready to wake up at 5:30 am tomorrow! It has been a true honor to run with the 6 Ethiopian Tesfa runners, we're all learning a little Amharic and bonding very well with them. They're definitely holding back their pace to stay with us, haha.

 

We've only been here for a few days and the poverty is already quite overwhelming. This is such a great way to visit a country; running 25-35 miles a day gives you a lot of time with your thoughts, a lot of time to think about why things are this way, what can be done, and what any one of us can do after RAE to help alleviate poverty here or anywhere else. I'll write more soon with pictures!

May Erlewine (Half of the traveling duo mentioned throughout as Seth & May)

I am writing to you from a sweet little guest house in Addis Ababa (this is the capital city of Ethiopia. The name means "new flower"). Seth and I are back after two days out and about on the runners trail. It has been a whirlwind and it's hard to tell how much time has gone by. This is a beautiful country full of the most loving and generous souls. We have been in awe and inspiration every moment of our trip so far.  We have been working in the schools with children from ages of around 4-12. Working with Stephanie, Tesfa volunteer and organizer http://tesfa.org/, we have been doing art and music workshops with the kids. These children are so full of light and joy we have been overwhelmed with honor and emotion in their presence.  Please watch this beautiful video of May and Seth shot at the New Hope Academy in Addis Ababa.


Timothy Young
The Run Across Ethiopia team covered 28 miles and dropped another 200 feet into the Great Rift Valley. Two days out of Addis Ababa and I can feel the rhythm kicking in as The Tesfa Foundation support team steps up, allowing me to get another fix of hugging babies and dancing with kids at the their school in Mojo. I'm so excited for my family to arrive!

Jacob Wheeler
The Run Across Ethiopia harriers stepped things up a notch on Day 2 of the 250-mile, 11-day journey. This morning, shortly before 8 a.m., we left the town of Debre Zeyit and headed southeast, then due south, on a 28-mile jog, during which the urban congestion gave way to beautiful rolling fields of teff grass (which Ethiopians use to make injera, their national dish), cattle and livestock, and families living near the road who were surprised to see a contingent of white North Americans run by. Among today’s highlights was a little local schoolboy in a backpack running in the gutter alongside the road to catch up with RAE’er Chris Treter. The next three days’ journey will exceed 30 miles, before we begin climbing again into the Rift Valley.

 

Chris Treter
Today marked the second day of the Run Across Ethiopia. After an extremely busy first day that saw us getting off to a late start due to the logistics of transporting our whole team of over 30 people to the launch, while accomodating a surprising extra 25 well wisher, the team decided to start earlier on day 2 to minimize our exposure to the sun. We thought it best to wait till after sunrise to start jogging as Heinas are known to enjoy the flavor of runners in the night time so we started out at about 7:30 am. The run was much smoother then I thought. The first 15 miles are on the main road from Addis Ababa to Djibouti, a busy thoroughfare where exports and imports make their way between the port and capital. Once we took a right off that road in Mojo and started down the road toward Kenya, things started to be much more rural with far less traffic. That is, minus the one random Chinese cement factory (Chinese are heavily investing in Ethiopia) in the middle of nowhere that filled the road with smoke for a good five minutes of jogging. We covered our mouths and noses with our shirt to avoid sucking in the thick toxic smoke.

James Weston
Stray dogs bark wildly as the runners stretch out into their beds, all of our film equipment is charging through of one single plug, and Seth and May can be heard making new music in the room next door.  As the second day of the Run Across Ethiopia comes to a close, I feel like the last six days of being in this country have made up a full month.  So much anticipation and preparation went into what is now taking place and every day we receive further confirmation from the Ethiopian people why this effort is so vital and timely.  Jamaica and I love seeing the locals explode into joy, curiosity, and support as the runners trot by, keeping up their pace along on the 250 mile journey through a beautiful & historic land. James and Jamaica are raising funds independently to fund the production of the Run Across Ethiopia documentary.  Please click the graphic to the right to visit their site.

To read full-length stories posted by our RAE Team members please visit our blog pages at http://onthegroundglobal.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e86f86882c25bcdcfe0bda552&id=88a1e08ed0&e=7b6f7ef5c1
 

To see more photos of the team as they are sent to us from Ethiopia, go to the website, www.runacrossethiopia.org, or go to our Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/57872575@N05/.