Team Five Morris

I am 32 years old and just beginning to realize that the firmness of youth is rapidly disappearing.  Of course those of you lucky enough to see me in a swim suit are probably wondering if my youthful firmness was a figment of my imagination.  Anyway, when I was stirring a pot of soup and my underarms started flapping in the breeze I decided that I better start exercising before I need to have short term teams bring me catalogues from Lane Bryant.  I love the idea of exercise...I really do.  (Fine...I'm lying.)  I like the cute running outfits and the ipod arm bands that tell the world, "Yes, I am fit and healthy".  But exercising is something I have battled against all my life.  I used to joke that I had to stop exercising because my sweats would catch on fire when I ran from the friction.  All this to say...I'm lazy and usually pretty content in my laziness. 

However, when my arms did their rebellious jiggly little dance I said "Enough is enough".  Dan and the kids are all in Taekwondo and Dan has lost weight and is feeling good.  I hate to be the only chubby one in the family so I have started walking a few times a week.  Ok, I just lied.  On a missionary blog.  I repent.  I am only walking once a week but I have big plans to up it to a gruelling two days a week soon.  But I have to walk up a ridiculous hill that nearly did me in the first day.  And on top of it, Kampala is not known for the air quality.  So really my measly one day a week is really like a full week of exercise all things considered. 

So today I'm trotting along at a good pace (an old man may have passed me at one point but he seemed really spry).  I'm rockin' out to my ipod (without the cool hip arm band) and a boda boda pulls along side me and asks if I want a ride.  (Boda Bodas are motorcycle taxis).  I shook my head and waved him off.  Can't he see I'm EXERCISING?  I keep walking and the hill is looming before me.  My breath is labored to say the least.  A young man walks beside me and gestures for me to take my head phones off.  I roll my eyes and keep walking but ask him what he wants.  "Some money for transport please?" he says.  Come on!  I'm walking here...with no bag or purse and only my ipod and he expects me to A: chit chat, B: be carrying money in my skin folds?, and C: give him said money?  I try to hide my irritation as I slip my headphones back on and keep walking.  As I crest the mother of all hills another boda boda hoots at me and asks if I need a ride.  At this point I am beginning to get a complex.  Is it that obvious that I am not an athlete and that this hill is nearly killing me?  I thought I was hiding it better than that.  Resisting the urge to break into a run just to show my athletic abilities I shoo him away as well.  This happens another two or three times and I trudge home defeated. 

I guess I really have no point to this other than to say, I'm getting old, I'm getting fat and I need encouragement to exercise.  The Ugandan all carb diet doesn't seem to agree with my body.  My friend here is a runner (show off) and asked if I wanted to do the Kampala marathon in November.  I laughed and said my only fitness goal is to NOT be obese but it's been bugging me ever since.  With most of my family members veterans of numerous marathons it does have a certain appeal.  Who knows, maybe those boda bodas will have to drive really fast to catch me next time!  Maybe I'll be that girl running up the monster hill with my very own ipod armband and firm lovely arms.  Or maybe I'll just stay happy in my laziness. 

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