Monday 4 May, 2009
Running Across Borders High Altitude Training Camp Project—Weeks One and Two
The training structure and opportunities in education and employment that the RAB programme offers is now operational. Ten developmental athletes from the rural region of Assella are now residing in the Running Across Borders Training Camp in Addis having been in the camp for two weeks. Co-Director Garrett Ash, on the ground in Ethiopia, shares his experiences of these weeks.
____________________________________________On Monday afternoon 20 April, myself and the 10 first-year developmental athletes from Arsi Zone arrive at the camp and are greeted by Yared Hailesilassie, a second-year RAB developmental athlete. Yared has been preparing the camp to welcome the new inductees while I have been meeting with them and their families and coaches in the rural region of Asella. With the funds from athlete sponsors (Girls Gotta Run Foundation, 2L Coaching, Guernsey Island Amateur Athletics Club, Bart Borghuis, Swarthmore College XC Alums, and RAB general funds) Yared has stocked the kitchen cabinets with a month’s supply of pasta, macaroni sacks, rice, sugar, tea leaves, spices, cooking oil and salt, plus the drawers with supplies of fresh vegetables, fruits, eggs, peanut butter, and bread. For the first week we shop for these items daily although as of 4 May we have raised the funds to purchase a fridge. Meanwhile mattresses have been purchased and arranged throughout the rooms of the house. As is the Ethiopian tradition for celebrating an occasion such as a holiday or the arrival of friends Yared scattered long grass strands on the floor.
Tuesday morning comes and the athletes begin to rise around 6am. Being in an equatorial area we don’t have concern about daylight savings time, Seasonal Effective Disorder, etc. At 6am the sun comes up. At 7pm it goes down. Total annual variation is about 20 minutes in either direction. For these reasons, although the local rooster crows and the alarm clock on my mobile phone also goes off, these things don’t seem necessary. Rather it is simply as the sun makes its way up over the horizon that the house begins to bustle with activity. People start milling about and changing into running clothing. By 6:30 they have made their way to the front garden and are gathering for the first training session. I gather them around. I have some strength and conditioning exercises I want to help introduce into their training routine but not today. They’re having enough things introduced to their lives this week! I give them the program from Coach Melaku: 30-35 minutes of easy running.
We also post a weekly chore schedule: each day 2 athletes will cook breakfast and assist with shopping, 2 will cook lunch, 3 will cook dinner, 2 will sweep or mop the house, and 1 will water the garden. In addition I post a carefully designed weekly menu program. Both of the latter documents are written bi-lingual: in English and the Ethiopian national language Amharic.
In addition to the basic responsibilities to be carried out by the 10 first-year athletes, there is administrative work to be handled by the 2 second-year ones Yared and Gudisa. Yared will be the shopping manager; he will assign other athletes to shop according to the weekly and monthly prescribed budgets, collect receipts, check them against the amount of cash distributed, and forward them to the RAB Co-Directors in order to receive the next amount of the budget. Gudisa will be in charge of cleaning and hospitality; ensuring that all facilities are cleaned up to proper standards, and looking after the special needs of foreign athletes visiting the camp to train. These special needs include, for example, drinking exclusively bottled rather than tap water, adaptation to Ethiopia’s altitude and training surfaces, making adjustments to the language and other cultural aspects, and being met at the airport to be taken to the camp.
Yared and Gudisa began RAB’s program as orphans living in poverty with little to no work experience. After one year of performing basic chores for the RAB camp they have become prepared to handle more advanced responsibilities; Gudisa in the area of running tourism and Yared in the area of camp administration. After another year, pending continued improvement and good job performance, their responsibilities can be increased another level: for example Gudisa can begin to assist in coordinating and promoting the ‘Visit and Train’ tourism program, and Yared may have a formal role on the RAB Ethiopia Executive Committee.
English Language Teaching
Similarly, the first-year athletes can progress within a year to the level Yared and Gudisa are at now, and continue to move upwards from there. Communication is very important: after a year of cooperating with myself, the project Co-Director, Gudisa’s school-taught English has improved, and Yared’s English has improved from literally fewer than 5 phrases to a level where he and I communicate regularly through meetings, phone, and email.
For the first-year athletes from the Arsi Zone: all of them completed their government education up to grade 8 and many of them finished up to grade 10, so their English knowledge should be good. And when English Teacher Tinbit Amare arrives to teach the first lesson on Wednesday, she concurs that they can read, write, and construct grammar in English at a reasonable level. They can even complete classroom speaking drills. The problem, Tinbit says, is confidence.
But after Tinbit teaches them for just one week improvements become evident. Eshetu in particular starts to take significant amounts of initiative. When Yared and I meet to discuss the shopping budget Eshetu looks over our shoulders, following closely as we work through the figures. Then he carefully examines the chore schedule, and offers to see to it that all responsibilities are followed.
Eda’O also takes an initiative. When the first international athletes arrive to train in the camp, through the ‘visit and train’ program, he breaks the language barrier by communicating in some basic phrases. ‘My name is Eda’O,’ he says. ‘Her name is Dunkane.’ And so on. He then teams up with Gudisa to help offer hospitality to our guests. At present we are hosting two male athletes from the United Kingdom.
After one week Abdulay Admassu, Vice-Chief of the Arsi Zone Youth and Sport Administration, pays a visit to Addis Ababa. He is the governmental official who has helped facilitate the link between Running Across Borders and the athletes from the rural Arsi area. He wants to check on his ‘kids’ as he refers to them. I collect him at the bus station on the day of his arrival and we attend several administrative meetings with the Oromea Regional Government Office and the Ethiopian Athletics Federation. Then we head to the camp. He is greeted warmly by the athletes, whom he has looked after for the past six years as they’ve developed their ability and passion for running. Now he’s happy to see them gaining access to greater opportunities still, and they are happy to see him after their first week away.
Although they propose that we hire a domestic worker to prepare breakfast, after having discussed the idea with Yared and also by phone with Co-Director Malcolm Anderson, we concur that hiring household help would go against our mission of expanding economic opportunities. At this early stage of operations it would be giving the athletes more than they have earned at the moment. When they’re earning a living as professional athletes or in an alternative career related to the sport, they may choose to hire help. For now, Running Across Borders and its sponsors can supply the basic resources, but they have to do the work to utilize them.
On the other hand, ACSM recommendations strongly advocate eating a meal high in carbohydrates and moderate in protein within 30 minutes of finishing a hard training session. Waiting an hour is not ideal. We need a solution. We conclude that the best solution is to invest 300 Ethiopian Birr (roughly 27 USD) in a blender. This will solve the time problem without over-pampering the athletes.
Chore responsibilities: the athletes point out that although chores are getting done it is happening haphazardly. The sheet I’ve posted on the wall with job assignments is not being followed. We need a programme that gets enforced, they say. I concur. Abdulay explains to me that for Yared or Gudisa to enforce it is difficult. For Yared there is a communication barrier; although he as well as the other athletes speak the national language Amharic, the 10 youngsters just arrived from the Arsi countryside are much more comfortable conversing in their native language Oromefa while Yared’s mother tongue is Tigrigna. For Gudisa the age gap becomes apparent; although an experienced worker for Running Across Borders Gudisa is 17 while the others are aged 18 up to 20. Certainly the more time together and the experiences that they all will have in the training programme will aid the transition from rural village life to urban camp life.
Shoes and sportwear support: right now we are supported by a number of small groups all doing their very best to support us by funding food, transportation, and education. Additionally members of the Oxford University Cross-Country Club have donated a high number of used training shoes. But a lot of the athletes are still running in shoes that don’t fit properly or are worn out. Furthermore most of their clothing is old, tattered, and often not technical-standard running gear.
Many people in Ethiopia ask me why we aren’t sponsored by a corporate running brand. We have reasonable-standard athletes; shouldn’t they be interested in that? It is true, I think to myself, that as a 15:08 5k runner in the USA I was supported regularly by a running club with new shoes every few months, all travel expenses for races, and loads of free running clothing. Some of these athletes can run not only 5k in 15 minutes but 10k in 30 minutes, at 2,300m altitude, and haven’t gotten anything at all. I explain it to them as transparently as possible: Unfortunately it is very difficult for 30-minute (men) or 36-minute (women) 10k runners to get noticed in Africa. The world has seen thousands of them. They don’t get surprised when they see another one. When they see a white person running those times however they take notice. So companies will support the white runners not the African ones.
As we expand our program we will attract international attention. Our sub-elite athletes are beginning to succeed abroad, Urga Ararisa’s 2:16:01 and 16th place performance at the Rome Marathon being a good example. International athletes have begun to visit our camp to train, which is facilitating cross-cultural connections. Lastly, our aim for the developmental athletes in the camp is for as many of them as possible to become truly elite international athletes.
I tell the athletes that they can do a lot to help with these strategic aims:
a) Work harder to express themselves through their interviews and training journals. In Ethiopia self-expression is not a cultural norm. This holds true for men and even more so for women. But sponsors want to know who athletes are as people. Many athletes can win races but the African ones tend to lack the ability to talk about such experiences afterwards.
b) When foreign athletes come it is important that the Ethiopians do not act shy but rather interact with the visitors and facilitate as much cultural exchange as possible.
c) Work duties: the athletes must all fulfil their designated responsibilities and roles in upholding the functioning of the Running Across Borders Training Camp. This will not only aid us in our objectives toward athletics, education, and employment training, but it will also renew the confidence of current and potential sponsors in our ability to use the money in the best-targeted way possible.
The athletes listen carefully. With a bit of translation help from Yared they understand, and also agree. We say goodnight and rest awaiting the new day and weeks ahead for the RAB Training Programme.
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EXPANDING ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES TO EAST AFRICAN YOUTH THROUGH RUNNING
