Lucky Star Marathon

So here we are in term 3. One of the teachers asked me about helping him organize the trip to Swakop so our relay teams can compete in the marathon. I happily accepted. Soon after he approached me again about being a track coach. (so, brief background on this: I Hate Running!) but i accepted, confused about my actual responsibilities. The kids only did real intense training for like 4 weeks. Then here we are, October 14 ready for departure. A combi, like a van, arrives 2 hours late to pick us up. This combi is a 10 seater, yet we have 12 kids, 3 teachers and the driver. Wtf. So we all squeeze in and 2 hours later, hit the dirt road. They told us we would be taking the back roads to okahandja since the trailer didn't have updated registration. This was both good and bad. The good part is that i got to see a bunch of warthog's (pumba), springbok's, and kudu along the way. Very cool animals. Except for the pumba's, they're kinda dumb, they almost wait for your car to approach to decide to run across the road. The bad part, these are the most mysterious back roads i've ever seen. And since their hardly driven on, its real bumpy. About an hour into the drive we had a flat. We're parked out in front of Dasha's village changing the tire and preparing to get back on the same road. About 4 hours later we arrive at a closed gas station in the middle of nowhere, its now 9pm. Its dark. Then another truck full of road workers pulls up. They start trying to pump gas, eventually one of them works. No payment, no attendent. Hey, whatever works. An hour later we arrive in okahandja. We are driving down a paved road when.........yes, another flat tire! The guy pulls the van into this truck stop. Its now 10pm, the kids haven't eaten, and we don't have a spare tire. The kids end up eating bread with honey for dinner. By about 1130pm someone came out to help us and we drove to the house where we would stay for the night. Its Mara's house! This was sarah g's host mom from training, we partied there all the time. The boys slept outside on the back patio, the girls slept on the kitchen floor, and i slept on the couch. That morning the van was supposed to go in the shop to fix something, i'm not sure what. And coincidentally, group 32 was swearing in this morning also, in town. So i got dressed and went to the ceremony. Everything there was done at about 1. Car still not fixed. My former language trainer is family to the teachers i'm with so he takes me to them. They tell me that now the van won't start. Seriously? Then one of the teachers decides to call in another car from whk. So this van drops us, me and the 12 kids, at the gas station with all our stuff. Do you know how ridiculous we looked at the gas station with hella bags and blankets and foam matresses? I have no clue where the 2 other teachers are. We sit and wait for a good 2 hours before the new van arrived. Here's the deal: same amount of seats, minus the trailer for our luggage. ClusterFuck. So we're all sitting on top of blankets, bags at our feet. This was impossible. At this point its 6pm, we need to be at the coast in 3 hours, but it takes 4 to get there, in a sedan. We arrive an hour late for registration, but it was fine. The Lucky Star people served dinner, spaghetti noodles with ground beef. Typically a meal i enjoy, but this wasn't good. The kids didn't even eat it all. Mind you, they're hungry and poor, they'll eat anything! You have to know your food is bad when my kids don't eat it. Along with dinner each of us got a t shirt and 2 cans of lucky star. Lucky star was mentioned a while back as something i love. Its canned fish in a tomato sauce. Hella good. Anyway, they sponsor this marathon every year. The kids do relays and compete by age group and adults actually run the half or full marathon. We pile back into the van and head to where we would stay for the night. A preschool. I was given a bed, but our driver was lookin at me strange, so i decided to go to a classroom and sleep with the girls. It was freezing so i layered up. I woke up in the middle of the night hot and all the blankets wrapped on me smelled like urine! So gross. There was nothing i could do about it. That morning the girls brought of a bucket of warm water to wash up in, but there wasn't any privacy what so ever, so i just covered myself in powder and changed. Wearing "beach" attire, I froze my ass off all morning. My kids got off to a good start in the relays. We went to each stop to see them pass off. We roll up to the finish line about 1. There's like 30 peace corps volunteers there, about 10 participated in the marathon. And the only 2 to do the full marathon...from the Dirty 30, of course. We waited for the awards part. There were so many different categories. My girls got 5th place! I was happy about that. So apparently my little 4th grade girl passed up a dude in high school and he got mad and decided he absolutely had to hurry and speed pass her. After the marathon he approached her and shook her hand and gave her the respect she deserved. Thats just how we get down! Afterward i took the group down to the beach to play for a while, for most of them, its the first time to see the ocean. I got some good pics of them playing in the water, i'll post them next month. The rest of the evening i stayed with the other volunteers. We went out to eat and to a club, them piled up about 15 people in a 6 bed bungalo. I slept on my towel, used my sarong as my blanket and my duffel bag as my pillow. Rough night. Next morning Lauren and I went for b-fast and the van was on the way. They show up just as i'm about to embark on this fab steak. Damn! So i hurry up and eat it, thinking they're waiting on me. I go outside and they tell me they're waiting for kfc to open...in like an hour! I'm like, who waits for kfc to open? Then, sure enough, an suv full of black dudes pull up, turn off the car, and wait. I just start laughin. Black people all over the world, same story. Conclusion: when kfc finally opened, the lady came out and said all their systems were down. Hahahaha, so we left.