Keeping Fit

When I gave up my wonderful forest job from last year and I took on this amazing new position with a humanitarian aid organization, I knew changes would come in all shapes or forms. And it was what I happily embraced too, as I was certainly looking for another challenge in Africa. One thing was bothering me, though: I knew that security rules would be much stricter, and that in many places where we work I would not even be allowed to go anywhere on foot (walking being one of my all-time hobbies and definitely a huge need). I was already beginning to wonder how I would keep in some sort of shape (last year in Rwanda the gorilla hikes were more than sufficient, but now ‘field work’ means being taken by car pretty much everywhere.)

My one big hope was that I’d play lots of basketball on my friends’ private court, by the lake. It is one of the most beautiful houses here in Goma, and the family is just wonderfully hospitable. But the place lies pretty much at the other end of town (not that Goma is that big, but with the potholed road and the traffic jams it takes about 25-30 mins. one way, which is not something I would do every day, especially as it gets dark here around 6.30 p.m.). It is more of a weekend activity now, when basketball is usually followed up by dinner and drinks and other fun things. By the time I have to locate one of my drivers to come pick me up it is usually (very) late at night, so they must think I exercise very professionally (although I always shower and change there, which means I leave the house in sneakers and I come back in cocktail dresses and heels).

Clearly this was not going to be sustainable for my becoming and keeping fit on a regular basis, so I had to look for an alternative. The only well-equipped hotel gym in town is Karibu (i.e. ‘welcome’ in Swahili), which lies even further out on the lake, and which is prohibitively expensive, so that would not do. Luckily, just a few minutes’ walk from our house (a walk we can take only during daytime, of course) we have the luxury of the MONUSCO gym – which I can now access for $20/month, as I belong to an NGO doing humanitarian work in Congo.

Walking there, by the only stretch of lake still open in Goma, is really spectacular, especially as the time coincides pretty much with sunset every late afternoon. I usually get completely fascinated by the ocean-like views and I only look up when the road curves from next to the lake towards ‘centre ville’. There, in an isolated high-rise watch post, the blue helmet of the Uruguayan sentinel shows up from banana leaves. MONUSCO compound starts right there and then expands into lots of boring-looking pre-fabricated white buildings, clearly marked and very well guarded.

The first time I went there (end of July), I was quite worked-up about all the formalities at the entrance and a bit apprehensive about being the one non-regular gym goer among – well - professional soldiers… By now, I have already made ‘friends’ with every single Congolese guard at the entrance -- there are loads, and I am not sure exactly what each of them does other than sitting around, but they all want to seem important when they take my work badge and give me a visitor badge and enter tons of numbers on some check-in book. Of course they are slow, and they make mistakes all the time, but they are endearing, and now they call me up from the road already, “Karibu, Sinziana Maria!”

Once I leave the guards idle behind, I pass into a narrow corridor with a screening machine on the right (that either doesn’t work or that is deemed useless, since I was never asked to go through it). A few meters afterwards I have to cross a garden, where to the left a ton of soldiers always hang out – unfortunately, until now, we have only come to the stage where we mumble something between ‘hi’ and ‘hola’ to each other, and then they stay staring at my back as I make my way to the gym, some 30 meters to the right.

I think ANY gym in the world would ask BIIIG bucks if it had this location: above a terraced garden, with full view on the lake. It is just incredible to hop on a bike there and have this waterway at your feet. I many times let my thoughts run with the waves – so much so that once, after some 30 minutes, I thought I was actually rowing rather than biking. As the sun then sets, and the lake slowly disappears, all that is left to see is our own reflection in the big windows and the blue helmet of the sentinel in the garden corner – now slightly turned from the road towards the gym, to catch a glimpse of the excited action… The other times of the day when I went there - some Saturday mornings when I could not sleep in - I just took the lake in for the whole hour, feeling really lucky and blessed for such a life.

That said, the machines are almost completely run-down (none of them is plugged, so you cannot program anything, and so you just keep going at whatever rhythm you can work yourself into). That means that most people who come over – and who are, as predicted, either professional military or some real fitness freaks – go for the serious weight-lifting and other installations the looks of which totally scared me at the beginning (I should add here that I am SO NOT a gym person, actually, and that I never really went to these things more than a few random times here and there…)

With my Italian colleagues and housemates Viviana and Marco I chose, instead, to join the aerobics classes three times a week – which draw a ton of more regular people, of course. Placide, our instructor, is this really nicely built (how else?) Congolese, whose routine excited me at first, but who seems to be running out of many new ideas (or music tracks) as the weeks go by. I will not complain, though, as I am enjoying my getting (and keeping, hopefully) in shape a lot! Truth be told I kind of limp around (both here and on the basketball court), as I injured an ankle months ago and have not had the wisdom or the patience to tend to it properly.

The gym has also given me the chance to meet pretty much all the other mzungus in town I had not already met before. We are really not that big a bunch, so ‘gym types’ have already emerged pretty clearly: the power woman, who just paces around with insanely heavy weights; the fighter, who just kicks this boxing bag with a fury and then throws himself to the ground in an incredible sweaty puddle; the do-it-all guy, who seems to be moving among machines at an incredible speed, while displaying his muscles very consciously (and who, just last night, invited me out for dinner, even if we never really said more than ‘hi’ to each other…); the bicycle lady – a Romanian girl, in fact, whom I had befriended on FB but had never met in person, until she recognized my ‘Romanianess’ at the gym, sometime during her one-hour + frantic biking…

In a bizarre way, the fact that I paid for this monthly gym pass makes me feel more grounded in Goma than anything else. Hope it helps the home-like feeling grow, keep my mood happy and body healthy…