Hash House Harriers

We have had the luck to come across an excellent group of people all belonging to what I thought was a long past colonial relic, the Hash House Harriers (HHH). It turns out this concept is alive and well around the world, usually in places with large expat communities. Here in Yaounde every Saturday at 3:30pm, a group of around 30 or 40 takes off into the green hills around the city for an hour or so run and then some social drinking afterwards.

Last week was a little damp and therefore muddy, with the allocated trail leading through fields and and up and down muddy slopes. The route for the run is laid out by some volunteer 'hares' in the morning using some standard little markings at junctions. The 'harrier' runners come along and have to search and find the correct route. This means lots of extra running and searching for the fitter and faster members, and a more social slower time for those bringing up the rear.

Turns out that the concept started in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in 1938 with the Hash House name coming from the place some of the first runners were living. HHH is apparently often described as "a drinking group with a running problem", and uses as it's anthem "Swing Low, Sweet Chariots".

Comments

Royster said…
Richard -

My wife and I are avid hashers, but are having trouble connecting with the Yaounde H3 since we arrived here in July. We tried today, for instance, but found no one at the Hilton. Undeterred, we ran home, and stopped for beer & pizza along the way!

Can you post a good contact for the hash so we can coordinate with them? We'll look for you on trail.

On-on, Burnt Sox
4:49 am
Richard Wesley said…
Oh dear, that's no good. They always meet just down the road from the Hilton (outside about the Kodak shop) after about 3:30pm Saturday, leaving in what ever vehicles are there at 4pm. Look out for the orange HHH t-shirts. I'll try and get a contact for you as I am now in the north west region and not in Yaounde.
3:53 am
Royster said…
The error may have been ours. We arrived at 1500 h and stayed until almost 1550 h; we'd been told the starting time was 1515 h. We were in the Hilton itself, though we certainly walked all around the area.

We'll have another chance in a few weeks and hope to see you on trail.
12:06 pm
Royster said…
We sorted it out and had a fun run through the muck and mud near the main mosque in Yaounde. Turns out it was an interpretation problem to figure out the meeting place: "Meet at the Hilton at 1515 h" should be interpreted as "Meet down the street from the Hilton around 1600 h."

A great time was had by us. On-on!
11:40 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Judith's Cameroon Visit

Image
Christmas this year was spent in Yaounde with some friends putting on a great feed at their house on the other side of town. Elodie and I then headed to Kirbi, with its wonderful long deserted stretches of white sand and some quiet beach time. We hoped to track down some rare turtles laying their eggs on the beach under the cover of darkness, but after two nights out walking and sleeping on the beaches we will have to try again another day for that experience. My sister Judith arrrived in Cameroon to visit our African outpost just before the year ended. We headed with her for the hills and spent New Years Eve beside a beautiful lake at the top of the Mananguba Mountains, about half way between the coast and where I work in Belo. The 'guide' turned out to be a right pain, but we got there in the end and enjoyed a swim, fresh fish, and christmas pudding all the way from New Zealand. My mate Andy also joined us for this little camping trip. Cameroon has featured in the movies ...
Read more

Jebel Climbing

Image
The town of Mornei where I am now living is overlooked by a wonderful little mountain, or 'jebel' as they are known here. We climbed it on Friday (our day off here being a Muslim region) but did not get great views as it was quite cloudy. I'll have to try again next week. The jebel sits to the south of the town and rises abruptly from the otherwise flat sandy landscape. To the north and west are scrubby wastelands, and on the eastern side is the dry river bed or 'wadi'. In the village kids run and play and the place looks like a large healthy village. Of course looks can be deceiving, and this village is in fact a camp which grew from 5000 residents to 75,000 refugees (or internally displaced peoples (IDP's) as they are now known) during the major Darfur violence of 2003 and 2004. Most people therefore have had their homes and livelihoods destroyed, often loosing many members of their family in the process. Armed men still wander the streets, and rapes and looti...
Read more

Motorcycle Exploration

Image
I rode a motorbike a little as a teenage on a farm north of where I grew up. That little experience seems to have given me enough of the bug to do a bit more while here in Cameroon. Another volunteer Lance, only here for four weeks, turned out to be a motorbike mechanic, which was a huge opportunity for me to learn as much as I could. One weekend after work we headed off around part of what is known as the Ring Road, which circles the main range of mountains in this north west region, for a complete distance of 367km. Due to the rains and unreliable bikes we just did a small section, but this still included a lot of technical rough riding, a fairly serious river crossing, a fantastic waterfall, and a visit to the local chiefs palace. On the way we had various fuel leaks, my clutch not working for half a day, one flat tire, and a chain coming off three times. I only crashed once, we only got lost once (ended up in the middle of a farmers field after the river crossing somehow), and only...
Read more