A Reminder

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I used to run with a boy in South Africa. I don’t have any photos of him.

And I take a lot of photos.

I guess it is a reminder that sometimes some of the fondest and most important memories are left for us in our heads, without documentation. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it doesn’t mean these memories aren’t as, or even possibly more, important.

Not having a photo of my former running partner, however, made me particularly sad this morning. This is a memory of someone I’d love to have a visual reminder of as well the story in my head.

Two months after finishing college, I moved to South Africa, to begin working at a local non-profit somewhere totally foreign to me. I had been before. Doing university sponsored research for independent projects. But this was a move. My first move away from home in Minnesota.

Five days after my 23rd birthday in September, 2002, I arrived in Cape Town alone. I spent two weeks in Plettenburg Bay training and getting to know my three other co-workers before we moved to the village of Hogsback, in the Amatola Mountains. We immediately started working there at an outdoor education camp for ‘disadvantanged children’.

(Weren’t most children in South Africa ‘disadvantaged’?)

I met John, my running buddy, a few days after arriving in Hogsback. He was the foster son of the couple that owned the camp. He and his brother were there, most weeks, participating in the classes, hikes, and other activities. They were originally from East London, a city about 140km away.

I was up at 6am daily, to run and have some outdoor time before our kid-filled days began. We were in the middle of nowhere. I loved running there. Stuck deep in a mountainous valley surrounded by rolling hills, forest and waterfalls. They say JRR Tolkien got his inspiration for The Lord of the Rings from this area. I believe it.

The closest thing resembling a village was over 30km away. I loved that, too.

John was up this early as well. He’d often be up playing around with his younger brother, whose name I can no longer remember. They’d see me, laugh and wave, and keep playing.

On the fifth or sixth day into my daily regimen, John walked up to me as I was tying my running shoes and asked, “If you run every day, can I run with you?”

I looked down at his feet. He was prepared with the right shoes. So I grinned and replied, “I’m not sure you can keep up. I’m pretty fast.”

He said, “Well, maybe I’m faster than you?”

He insisted he was a runner. I was already going to say yes but I strung out the answer a little bit longer and mentioned that unless I’m training, I often prefer running alone. To which he responded, “Well, let’s train then.”

I laughed, said he was clever. He grinned and said, “I read a lot of books.”

Seriously, that line stood out. It is still one of my favorites.

I asked how old he was. He was 14. I asked how long he’d been running. He made clear he had been running “long enough.”

To that we laughed together and I joked back, “Okay then, if you think you can keep up, you can run with me. But I’m not going to slow down for you.”

His final words were “I don’t think you heard me correctly, for I said I was a runner. Let’s race.”

He was not slower than I was.

And shit, I’m not slow.

I couldn’t tell how much faster he was, however, because we just struck a good running pace and talked about the world.

He was Xhosa. He and his brother had been living in a foster home for years. Their biological parents were somewhere lost in a world township-related violence and alcohol abuse. John and his brother were lucky enough to be able to stick together in foster home after foster home until they found their somewhat longer-term residence with the aforementioned couple.

They loved it there. It was miles away from the chaos of East London. They laughed a lot.

John was right - if he wasn’t running, eating or playing with his little brother, he was reading. He always had a book in his hands. Anything he could get his head around, he read it. His curiosity was massive and he asked so many questions.

Our conversation topics were limitless. We’d chat about what he ‘wanted to be when he grew up’, the places he wanted to visit and live, what our favorite books were, what people thought of Thabo Mbeki (then president of South Africa), if I ever wanted to move back home, why I left, why he thought I would keep moving, etc.

(At that point, South Africa was the first foreign country where I moved. It’s as if he knew it would not be my last…because I’m now on my sixth).

He asked me once what I thought about his country’s history. I mentioned that exact subject was one of the reasons why I was there. To understand it better. To get my head around why so many people believed in punishment for the past whereas others believed in understanding, compromise and progress to move forward. While South Africa embodied all of these, together we believed in the last three. For me, pointing out that common thread was the highlight of all our conversations.

I’ve never had a brother (or any siblings). But for those 3-4 months, I felt like I did. Running and talking about a life I was super excited for him to continue to lead. And a life I wasn’t yet aware I should be so happy and lucky to have.

I haven’t seen or spoken to him in nearly nine years since I left Hogsback in March, 2003. I subsequently moved to Vietnam and Korea within weeks.

I am sure he’s doing well. But I’d still love a photo to remember him better.

I write this on a day I find out that two of my friends have recently moved back to Africa. This time, Sudan. And a third is back in Rwanda.

The craziest thing about life, wherever I am?

I’m still not afraid to leave but I’m finally not afraid to stay put. 

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