Topless and Fancy Free

Each Saturday Whitney and I do our long runs in preparation for the 1/2 marathon.
Saturday was a running experience I will never forget. It was one
filled with so much laughter that we had to stop many times just to
regain composure.

It all began at Challenge Farm where we parked the car. We had
only been running for a few minutes when we encountered a topless
woman doing a tribal dance in the middle of the dirt road. The sun was right in our eyes so Whitney missed the obvious fact that the person dancing was a woman. As we passed her Whitney said, “I wonder what he is doing.” I remarked, "I believe you mean what is she doing?” At that moment we heard someone running behind us. Reluctantly we turned around and saw that the woman had decided to run with us. I thought she’d follow us to the main road and stop. There was this moment of silence in our conversation as Whitney and I tried to stifle what was about to become very loud laughter. Not everyday do we run with a topless woman.

We arrived at the end of the street and turned onto the main
paved road where she kept following us. She was running
effortlessly while talking in Kiswahili. It seemed like she
had found her long lost running buddies and just picked up right
where she left off. She scared us, though, as she was running right down the middle of the road whereas we were safely tucked away on the side. The matatus and cars had to dodge her as they drove up. Luckily we weren’t on the main road for long and turned down another dirt road.

Imagine two white women running down the streets on a Saturday morning and then add a crazy topless African woman and you might be able to picture the stares we were getting from people in cars, on bikes, and walking. I’m still impressed that we were able to trudge on, but then we were determined to get through our long run. Our ½ marathon depended on it.

It really wasn’t so bad running with her once we sll the chuckles out of our system and blocked our minds against her smell since wearing deoderant isn’t
something most Africans do. It did begin to become a problem when
her running went from running close by us to nearly running on top of
us. We began weaving from one side to the other to try and get some
distance but it wasn’t working. Whitney then told her in Kiswahili to stop running so close to us and she did. She stopped dead in her tracks after running
with us for 2 miles. Whitney and I ran on. Another 2 miles down the
road we encountered her again only this time she was walking and
holding a very dirty wet potato sack. She waited for a moment until we got closer and headed straight for Whitney, giving her a smack on the neck with the sack. I guess that solved the mystery of just what she thought when Whitney asked her to stop running. Whitney yelled out, “Mama, Mama!” which is how to refer to
a woman with respect. The woman just walked on her way not doing
anything else. For the next mile (this is now mile 5) we had to stop
over and over due to laughter.

It’s been one week since this story took place. We ran for 10 miles
this morning around the same area. Whitney was a little worried
about running into Topless Mama but we made it through without any
sighting of her. Next week is our last long run, which will be
12 miles, before the race on the 28th.