Fast forward now in Togo. Lots of stuff going on and not much time left to do it!
The biggest event recently for me was the Accra International Marathon in Ghana. The past 6 months I’d been working on getting back into shape after having resolved to run this marathon as a grand finale to service. I spent lots of early mornings going on long runs through the country with a baggie full of peanuts and tchakpa waiting for me at the end to quench the thirst. I never imagined running could be as enjoyable as I found it to be during my training!
A strong delegation of Peace Corps Togo volunteers signed up for the full and half marathons so we had some good camaraderie on our side for race day. Some people paired off during the run (I ran for 17 miles with a friend I trained with before I had to watch him go ahead of me), but people respected their own capacities, trickling in at their own pace (after all, the goal for all of us was basically just to finish!). The day of the race there was a couple of bumps in the road to overcome. The race started an hour late, which gave the climate another hour to climb well into the 90’s (I finished at 10:30 which means a high African sun! My sunburns hurt way more than any soreness from the run the day after) and they ran out of water after mile 22, but everyone managed to hold their own! For me it was a very memorable experience and enjoyable in a tiring kind of sweaty way! Crossing the finish line was very satisfying (That is, once I caught my breath and found shade, water and the tchakpa that I had transported all the way from northern Togo!) and Accra was the right city to be in to spend hours satisfying a thirst and hunger that I built up over the 4 hours the race took me to finish! We indulged! And now I’m looking for training partners to improve on that when I get back home! I hear there’s a marathon next spring at Sugarloaf!
But with the end of the race, so ends my last big goal to accomplish in my service. Right before then I had wrapped up my Moringa campaign (the women wound up planting over 14000 trees!) and now I’m looking ahead to the arrival of my replacement (a girl from Colorado) and my close of service date, which is set for 3 November. That leaves me about 3 weeks now to say my goodbyes and finish my last paperwork before I am officially no longer a Peace Corps volunteer. After that my parents are coming to visit for a couple weeks in Ghana and Togo and the 25th of November I catch my flight off the continent and into Montreal, Canada. I wanted to take my time on my way home so once I get in Montreal I’ll spread about 2 weeks time between Montreal and Quebec City before someone can hopefully come to Quebec City and bring me home overland. Either way, the hope is to be home in Maine by December 12th!
