What is the thing that matters?

These couple of weeks I have had many thoughts in my head. The first one was when we climped airplane at Helsinki airport on 31.12. I didn´t have clue of what was to come. I had read the news about the situation in Kenya and knew that thing was tence. The elections were held in 27.12 and the situation had gone to worse since they started counting the votes. At the airport in London me and my travel partner Jaakko asked to change the flight so that we would fly to South Africa. That would have meant buying a new ticket so we decided to go Kenya and see how the situation was going to turn like. We arrived in Nairobi 1.1 .2008 7.20am in the morning. I had a king idea of buying an air ticket to Eldoret to avoid long and unsecure car ride. Taking a bus would have been even riskier. The first flight was the next day early in the morning so we decided to take a look at Nairobi after taking the luggage to hotel as close to airport as possible.

We met a nice and reliable taxi driver who took us to national park for a short walk. After that we went to feed some monkies and to visit a local shopping centre. Everything looked calm in Nairobi with the only exception that there were only few cars on to roads. When returning to our hotel at 5pm we tryed to drive through city centre. Police had closed roads leading to centre and tried that way to avoid demonstrators to enter city centre. That was the only sign I saw that thing were not normal. Back at our hotel we went to a workout in the gym where we could find a treadmil. That was good and there was no need to run outside. That exercise turned out to be the only one in Kenya. In the evenint my journalist brother called me to warn about the worsening situation. Things looked bad and he only did not only encourage but told us not to go Eldoret. Situation over there had gone worse after a church was burned down with people inside it and people running away from their homes to police station to a safe. That was a sign that things were not fine. Instead of flying to Eldoret we bought a new ticket to first flight to go South-Africa. We got tickets for the evening flight and had some time to wait. In a meanwhile Jaakko had realized that a hundret euros were stolen from his walet from our four star hotellroom. We went to solve that and were promised that things are being taken care of. Until now nothing had happened.

When sitting at airoplane on the way to Johannesburg many thoughts run in my head. Was this a wise idea? Should we have waited for few more days to see if things calm down? New ticket costed some money and I really wanted to see my friends in Eldoret. We passed mount Kilimanjaro and my thoughts continued thinking the innocent lives being lost in strungles. Why do these people hate so much each other? I have been to several countries and also to Belfast North Ireland where people also used to kill each other. I got friends from both sides and asked questions from them. I even took classes on conflict just to understand the situation. And now we were on a plane talking and trying to find out whats behind the post election conflict. I basically read all the news available and discussed with Jaakko about that.

I landed Johannesburg airport with a lot of thoughts in my head. Luckily OP, the organizer for the camps in Dullstroom was there to pick us as there were some Norwegians arriving too. One of them returned Norway the next day though due to lack of visa. It was about 2am when we came to our house and I was ready to fall asleep immideately. Due to a lot of travelling and some stress caused by the situation I was quite tired. Only the next morning I realized that some Norwegians had arrived to same house a few hours earlier. We soon got to know each other and got along well. These talkative people saved my trip to South-Africa. In my dreams I was prepared to live with quiet Finns who I know allready. I got a change to make frienship with these people coming from the country of tunafish or what is turska in English? One of them had a really hard name to remember and I memorized the name after a bike brand called Raleihg + hill. Very strange. Anyway there we were in a new country with new challenges. Training started the next morning after a good sleep. Visit to a local shop and we vere ready for some seriuous business again. Still we could not stop watching the news on TV. Aljazeera and CNN were the best channels to follow whats happening. I had a friend who went to Eldoret for christmas and was there the whole time when strugless were going on. By the time of writing this some 500 people have been killed and 500 000 displaced. At the governmental level situation doesn´t look too good either as the looser of election was not even chosen to the cabinet. He should have been at least the vise president. Negotions still continue but problems are not solved. I really hope that things would settle down. What is the thing that really matters? My running career – the most important small detail in my life?