Olympic Fever

I made it into Nairobi on Thursday evening for a bit of time out of Sudan. It is always nice to get back to civilization after a couple months "in the bush" as we say. A nice bed and some nice meals can go a long way. I also have enjoyed getting to catch up on the Olympics and the news.

So I guess all the talk of boycotting the Olympics over China's role in Sudan was mostly all talk. I'm sure there are some who are, but I don't think there's any more information getting out to people about the things that have taken and are taking place currently in Darfur. At least a few months ago there was quite a bit in the news to bring awareness and attention to the situation. And I understand that the U.S. had a Sudanese carrying the flag at the opening ceremonies or something, but it didn't sound like any information was being spread as a result.

Being around a television and being able to watch the Olympics has been fun, though. There's just something about it being every 4 years and people representing their various countries that can really get people interested. Here in Kenya, the long distance races are always the most talked about events as they are the ones that the country has excelled at in the past. Yesterday evening the Women's 10,000 meter race (6.25 miles) was on television, and there was a group of a couple Kenyans, a few Sudanese, a few Americans, and an Uzbek from a Russian background watching. Even though it was a 30 minute race, we watched it straight through focused the whole time on the women running. Support for the Americans, Russians, Kenyans, and Ethiopians was mixed throughout our group. We were all trading comments about our country's representative and other country competitors and joking around. But for the last 5 laps (about 6 minutes), the volume kept increasing and increasing and the excitement level kept raising. Finally, over the entire last lap, almost all of us were yelling and standing and cheering. It was the most fun I may have ever had watching any Olympic event, and it was great to watch the Ethiopian woman pull away over the last 200m from the runner from Turkey and to see the look of joy and surprise on the American woman's face as she managed to win the bronze medal in third place. It was surprising to see the Kenyans not fair as well as normal, and unfortunately for our Uzbek friend, the top Russian athlete was uanble to keep up with the American. I guess we've now got to wait another four years until it will happen again. But there's still some more events that can hopefully provide as much excitement over the next few days...