What is worse than getting beat by girls in chitenges? (Zamruns Part II)

Early Wednesday morning, before the journey to Kalomo, I set off on my usual run. The Lusaka teachers had ended their strike and for the first time, children of all ages filled the sidewalks on their way to school. I made a right onto Addis Ababa and continued on the dirt path, parallel to the road. I caught up to a group of school boys, who couldn’t have been older than 7 or 8. At first they seemed surprised to see me and then the bravest starting running alongside me. At this point I remembered the advice Jon gave me… “Don’t forget to spread love and get people psyched around the world with high fives and fist pumps”. As a FPIT (fist-pumper-in-training), I decided to go with the traditional high-five. I held out my palm to the boy, smiling (and clearly not looking ahead). Just as his hand was about to hit mine, my foot caught on something and I was suddenly flying through the air. The flight ended as my body slammed down and slid across the ground, like I was stealing home. At this point, the boy looked at me with a mix of fear and shock. I tried to explain to him that humor was the proper response and that it is OK to laugh when people trip and fall….I mean I do it all the time (the laughing part of course, not the tripping). But he couldn’t stop staring at the bleeding gash on my arm. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how lucky I was that I didn’t take Jon’s second piece of advice to bring my camera on the run…