I haven't written much for about a month, in part because the school term has begun and I have gotten into what appears to be a routine: get up at 6am, plan for lessons from 7am, teach and work on curriculum until 4pm, play volleyball or help officiate a club until 5:30pm, go for a run until 6:30 or 7pm (By the way, I am training for a half-marathon - or maybe full marathon? - at the end of June), eat a little, bathe, read, and meditate until bed. As a write this, it is dawning on me just how many of my days in the past month have followed this exact pattern...

So that is my excuse for why I haven't written more, but what I really want to write about is this book, Born to Run, which was lent to me by another Peace Corps volunteer.

Ever since I ran cross country in high school I have ended almost every season/period of training with an injury. Even now, as I am training for this run I have been ending each run with sharp pain in my groin muscle and an aching right knee. I have always blamed my body for not being able to run without injury, but it turns out that I have just never known the proper way to run... As soon as I got the hint from this book I changed my stride and since then the aching in my knee has subsided and the pain in the groin has entirely disappeared.

The book chronicles Christopher McDougall's research into a tribe in Mexico that routinely runs 50-100 milers. As he studies them, he also studies ultra-marathoners in the United States and anthropologists who are studying our evolutionary roots.

According to their research, homo-erectus evolved as persistence hunters (read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting). This means that we ran animals to death... We have the unique ability to dissipate heat on the run, where as most other animals have to stop and pant in order to expel excess heat (example: dogs have to stop and pant). So all of our ancestors were regular marathoners. On the great open plains in Africa they would run after a gazelle just fast enough that the gazelle did not get time to rest, until finally, after between 10 and 20 miles, the gazelle would die of heat exhaustion. They even found a small tribe near South Africa that still persistence hunts.

These guys run these distances until their 60's and they do it bare-foot. We, on the other hand, buy $150 shoes and get injured after running regularly for 5 months... The reason is because these shoes are so padded that they allow us to use the worst running form ever known to man.

The book has changed my life because I know have a slightly better idea of how to run, and how to run long-distance. I also have a better idea of who I am, because I have a better sense of how we evolved into what I am today.

The writing is totally gripping and I lost sleep in order to continue to read the book. I think that the book would be interesting even if you are not particularly interested in running.

Crash Course In Mid-HOOVEry

Last night I was preparing to read a book in bed when the school watchman started talking to me through my window.  I couldn’t really make out what he was saying, but it was clear that he saying something about the school cow and that he wanted me to come.  Feeling slightly annoyed I put on a jacket and headed outside.  He led me to where the school cow was laying on the ground, with what I think you would call a dilated birth canal. 

Before my very eyes part of the sack enveloping the baby started coming out, and within a few minutes I was staring at two hooves.

As we watched this happening our watchman and the primary school’s watchman decided that we needed the animal doctor to come and assist us with the birthing process.  As the watchman and I kept vigil the primary school’s watchman hurried off.

After a few minutes with the two of us watching the calf it became clear that the doctor may not come in time.  Despite this, I was slightly disturbed when the watchman grabbed the placenta and popped it, causing a small flood of fluid.

As all of this was happening, the mother was periodically becoming disturbed by a dog that was circling around her.  This caused the mother to jump up and hobble around with two hooves sticking out of her.  She looked so unstable that I thought she might seriously break a leg, but she never did and after each of these movements she settled back into a birthing position.

Then the watchman decided that it was time to, figuratively, take the baby-bull by the horns, or literally take it by the hooves, and separate it from it’s mother.  As he grabbed the head to keep the mother from jumping up, it became apparent that I was to be an integral part of this magic trick.  From his shouting I gathered that I was supposed to grab the hooves and pull, which I did.  The mother didn’t seem to enjoy this much, and I guess I don’t blame her.  I quickly found out that the hooves I had been seeing were the front ones and after about a minute of frantic pulling, I soon saw a head.  I do not know how many of you have ever tried to do this before, but it reminded me of trying to catch a greased pig at the country fair.  I have never tried to catch a greased pig, but I think that this would be a good analogy, so long as your greased pig had gotten himself wedged inside of a hole with an opening a third his size. 

Somehow I succeeded at this unlikely fair game, and once the calves' shoulders emerged the mom seemed to relax and the rest of the calf slipped right out.

Not a bad performance for my first time performing the pull-a-cow-from-another-cow trick!  The doctor then arrived in time to confirm that we had done good work. 

What I was noticing at this point was that the mother did not seem very interested in her new-born calf.  The doctor had a solution to this though.  He got a big handful of placenta and he smeared it all over the mother’s mouth. Instantly upon tasting this seemingly gross blood-water mixture, the mother became so excited that she hopped right up from where she has been trying to sleep and started licking that calf clean with a vigor that is possibly only matched in cows during the period when the bull is trying to mount the female.  This was a lot nicer to watch though, and I seriously cannot express my surprise at how energetic this mother became just from tasting placenta.

Below is a picture that I took of the calf about 14 hours after it was born.  With all that the calf and I have been through together it is sad to think that it will grow up for a few years only to be slaughtered.  Such is the life of cows though.