Keep Fit Club

I’ve been advertising a backlog of updates and I just can’t seem to get them up quickly enough.  Our Internet has been incredibly unreliable lately and I tend only to write when I’m about to post an update.  I’ll have to plan a bit more deliberately in the future.  Onward with the post!

My original jogging route was to take the first road that headed toward the sea, and follow it until I got to the sea. It worked! The road turns from asphault to dirt pretty quickly

I’m told that humans are creatures of habit and certainly find that to be the case for myself.  I tend to be happiest and most productive when I’m maintaining a healthy routine, and I’ve been working on getting such a routine going since I arrived in Ghana.  The recipe for my routine has many ingredients, but it is best served with a side of exercise and a liberal helping of waking up early.

Early mornings are a pretty active time in our area anyway.  Bridget tends to get up when the birds start singing, which Maggie places as happening every day at exactly 5:24am.  If the birds haven’t done their work on me, the sound of Bridget sweeping our mango tree’s leaves in the yard is usually enough to stir me.  Then if I’m really feeling zealous it’s up, dressed, and out for a run.

...from a dirt road it becomes a footpath...

My initial assessment of the Anlo region was that jogging is simply not done, but  I’ve gathered bits and pieces of information from various Ghanaians that suggests otherwise.  My friend Eric first put me on the path while we were exploring Keta.  He’s a marathon runner known locally as “Koom chah chah”.  Just read it like it’s written.  It means “fastest runner” and whether or not it is true of him, he’s notably well-recognized by that name.  At some point between the numerous brief interactions he has with everyone in sight (his friends, he tells me),  he asked me if I was part of a “Keep Fit Club”.  I assumed that he was referring to a gym, and detailed for him the facilities that I got to use at t

...the path ends at farmland. Only one path leads to the beach, and it's between some onions and some cayenne peppers...

he University of Washington when I attended.  At about this point the language barrier interjected, and the conversation clumsily disintegrated without my ever getting to really find out about what a Keep Fit Club actually was.

Thank the sweet Lord for Bridget, who I’ve now taken to calling the Ghanaian Wikipedia.  Apparently the Keep Fit Club is a group of people who get up and jog (or “trot”).  This transpires every day, but is kept from the prying eyes of Westerners.  How is this possible?

...now we've got to traverse some wetlands. Maggie and I walked this route as a team to do some beach-combing.

This secret society has a secret weapon: they are unyieldingly practical.  To get in a run of any considerable distance takes some time, and when is a good time to go for a long run in Ghana?  Never.  Or, if you insist, before the sun comes up.  The Keep Fit Club calls meetings to order at 3:00am.  Needless to say, I’m not yet a member.

For now I’ll keep my thirty minute jog at 6:00am, thank you very much.  I hope you aren’t too painfully bored by these pictures of my old route.  With the arrival of the new volunteers, Drew and Dan, I have a new running buddy!  Let’s hope that Abbey shares our enthusiasm.  If she joins us we’ll have three runners at the 6:00 time slot and maybe that will make us eligible to form our own club.

The sand here is very coarse and there are tons of polished seashells. In the background some fishermen are pulling in a net.

This is the view coming up onto the dunes

Farming is done at about six inches above the water table. The paths flood often.

This one was too big to jump over. She just slogged through.