Free Beverly Hills Maasai by Eric Walters

family’s donation to build the medical clinic near Ruth’s village. It was important for her village, and really, what was that kind of money to my father? For
most
of the people who lived in my neighbourhood, it might have been the cost of their
fifth
car, or the gardening service, or their monthly clothing allowance, or the personalchef. But I’d quickly discovered that telling people what we’d done only made them feel uncomfortable. Maybe they realized that it was something they could do quite easily if they really wanted to. It wasn’t the means they were lacking but the will to help. Why couldn’t these people see or understand how even a little would mean so much to people who—No, I couldn’t let myself get wound up. No point.
    I pulled into the parking lot and searched for a spot. I knew I was in the right place because the people around us walked like runners, looked like runners, and worst of all,
dressed
like runners—and by that I mean
horribly.
Sure, I’d come to understand that fashion isn’t
everything
, but surely it had to be
something.
    When we climbed out of the car, I was suddenly, along with Olivia, a little island of style adrift in a sea of fashion disasters. What was it about runners that made them want—no,
need
—to dress so totally repulsively? I understood that when they were running they couldn’t very well dress in Gucci and Miu Miu shoes. But today they weren’t running; they were simply registering to run. Did they think the organizers wouldn’t let them participate unless they dressed the part? Did they think that if they looked halfway fashionable they would be sent home?
    People passed by dressed in skimpy little shorts, mesh shirts—I couldn’t even
think
of an occasion when mesh might be considered clothing—and lots of tight spandex bodysuits. Goodness, put on little whiskers and ears and they would have looked like they were wearing cat costumes—and I’m not talkinga sort of Halle Berry Catwoman. More like a cat costume that would have been turned down by a six-year-old at Hallowe’en. And the colours! Did running make you colour-blind? Really, who decided that lime green and orange were a good combination? Come to think of it, if I dressed like that I’d run too—run away where nobody could see me!
    Not that I would ever be a runner. It’s a completely impractical mode of transportation. If you want to enjoy the view, you walk. If you want to get somewhere, you drive. If you want to catch the eye of the opposite sex, you work on your strut. I know runners who talk about the peace and tranquility of running, but I just tell them about the peace and tranquility of a full body wrap and shiatsu massage. For me, running has to have some purpose—a sale at the mall, perhaps, and rushing in when the doors first open. Of course, having been in Africa, I can now say from first-hand experience that being chased by a four-thousand-pound elephant is sufficient motivation to make anyone run like an Olympic sprinter.
    Then there was their choice of footwear—totally clunky and totally unattractive, and apparently made with all sorts of space-age materials and adorned with garish little swooshy symbols and stripes. Couldn’t they replace the swooshy symbol with some sort of animal? Perhaps a cheetah? No, cheetahs are fast but have no endurance, and the marathon is all about endurance—twenty-six miles of it.
    I looked at Nebala and it came to me—running shoes should have a little Maasai on the side!
    Not that Nebala and Samuel and Koyati were wearing running shoes. They wore simple sandals that were actually crafted from pieces of recycled tires. Yes, they wore tire tread for footwear. I wasn’t sure if that was completely inappropriate or completely and utterly correct. Of course I didn’t think anybody was noticing their tire-tread shoes because the brilliant red blankets and dress pretty well captured everybody’s attention.
    My plan had been to simply fall in