There are so many things that I’m going to miss about living here in Kibuye, that I’ve decided to merely highlight a few of them.
Burundi Trail Running
The part of rural Burundi where we live is incredibly rural. Our little village (which really is only a handful of houses) is the main ‘town’ for kilometers in any direction. Heading out in any direction there is a small town over here, a small one over there, a bit bigger one the valley over. The VAST majority of movement around here is by foot or bicycle. What that means is the ‘roads’ which link up the ‘towns’ around us are basically dirt trails through the hills.
Seemingly endless, red-dirt trails, winding over the lush green rolling hills. I’ve probably met about one car per year, and maybe every week or so you meet a motorcycle, but other than that, there are hundreds of km’s of paths laid out for my trail-running enjoyment. There is always lots of foot traffic, small kids carrying water, or gathering firewood, or going to school depending on the time of day. Women with kids wrapped tight on their back with a swath of bright fabric and a hoe balanced on their heads.
I track most of my runs on my phone, and looking back it appears that I’ve run somewhere over 4,500km since we moved up here. Hundreds of runs out on the trails, a huge chunk of them running solo, a whole bunch with the guys who run every Tuesday and Thursday at 06.00, a bunch with Susan, occasionally with one of the kids.
Honestly, it’s hard to imagine a better place for running.
OK – where we moved from in a house nestled along the side of the French Alps on a road that dead-ended and turned into a hiking path was pretty incredible also. And being able to run some trail races through the Alps was pretty amazing. So I guess in the past decade I’ve had some of the best running trails I could imagine anywhere.
The weather here is incredible for running. It’s never too hot, never cold, and even in rainy season, you can almost always miss the rain if you run in the morning.
Feel free to comment….