The headlights of our truck cut through the morning dark, occasionally giving me a glimpse of families trekking along the side of the road heading to the football field. All of them were clad in the garishly yellow, yet highly coveted Trukai Fun Run shirts. I was on my way to collect two friends and then join those families in the field for a delightful 5k that I had been looking forward to for weeks. Lest you imagine that I run for fun, let me straighten you. I don’t. I run because it helps me stay mentally sane. I run because it’s what my family has done my whole life and nothing else feels quite good enough. I run because God teaches me things through it. But I certainly don’t run because it’s fun. What made this run something to look forward to was multifaceted. It was a corporate run with lots of other people, something that never fails to be energizing and exciting. It was my normal distance and part of my normal route, but it wouldn’t involve me running in circles around Brian as he walks the girls in the double stroller (we do this for safety… he can run alone without reserve). Constantly circling for an entire run is incredibly defeating. A dear friend that became a dear friend while we ran through a summer of classes in Oregon was visiting Madang that week allowing us some of our special run time. Finally, I was quite curious how something like this would play out in PNG. Running isn’t exactly a thing here, so a 5k? It was bound to be a cultural learning experience. All in all, I had a lot of reasons to be excited, and I wasn’t disappointed.

When I stacked up my various expectations in moving to PNG, I never thought I would be part of a road race. I’ve only participated in one road race before living here (the 10k Butte to Butte in Eugene, Oregon that I maturely called the Butt to Butt when I didn’t feel like running it anymore), so I’m hardly an expert on how they should operate. I did assume mishaps were a given for a fun run taking place in a country full of people that only run when being chased. Physical exertion occurs while simply living, so running for exercise is a new and quite strange concept. The first mishap involved the official shirts. We had no idea how they sized them, so I ordered a small. In reality, the shirt sizes ranged from small child to large adult, so when Brian ordered a size ‘small’ for me he was actually ordering a size ‘scrawny teenage boy’. To make the shirt remotely appropriate I donned a long tank top underneath to hide the gap between the bottom of the shirt, and the top of my shorts. The shirt now belongs to Ray. Once at the field I realized we were supposed to turn in the contact information slips that came with our shirt. I had thrown mine away thinking it was only going to be used for a national drawing in a few weeks. Since I had no desire to win anything from this race, I wasn’t going to turn in a slip. The race managers were set up in a small wooden stand off to one side of the field. With his bullhorn in hand, one of the managers announced over and over that runners needed to turn in their slips before the race started. Since we were the only white faces in the crowd it was rather obvious that we were being delinquent. I’m never good at playing that role; not following the rules by their letter stresses me out. I kept trying to look busy, but always felt the blast of the bullhorn reminding me I was not in line.

The race began in front of the rickety stand, all of us gathered along the edge of the field as if we were going to do line sprints. The sun was just coming over the palm trees on the far end of the field, and I was antsy to get underway before the heat hit in full. A tall, muscular man led us in some of the most unique warm-up exercises I’ve seen in a long while. Instead of simply stretching our hamstrings, he had us lean down with our arms spread and one leg lifted precariously behind us. Each exercise had the feel of yoga without the poise. Mostly just the poise of a young and awkwardly leggy bird. They were ridiculous. After the warm-ups, the Bullhorn Man yelled the rules through his bullhorn, which was never far from his lips. There were two checkpoints. One as we turned to run up the road that parallels the ocean and one as we turned off that road and headed back into town. At the first checkpoint we would receive a bracelet; at the second a ticket. When we ran back through the gates of the field our tickets would be marked with a number by one of the race managers, indicating what place we came in. In order to receive any accolades or prizes, one must have a bracelet and a ticket with the number. Not having one or the other would indicate some level of cheating. I only half listened to these announcements. I had no intention of winning and I was certain there was zero chance of beating Papua New Guinean women. Or small children. The level of physical fitness in this country is very high. All I really wanted was a chance to run with my friend and a chance to go forward the entire time. Small needs.

The race began with the typical starter gun and all of us flying across the field to the small gate at the other side marked by large race flags. Also garishly yellow. We chose a moderate pace since we wanted to chat throughout the run. Due to this, we missed the wall of barefoot children slamming into this small opening. By the time we reached it the mass had worked their way through. The energy was wonderful. Curious onlookers sprinkled the road as we ran along, many taking pictures with their smart phones (a sight I’m still not used to here). Some people cheered from their houses, but after the first several blocks I stopped paying attention. I was absorbed in conversation with my dearest, a friend I rarely get to see. We would only snap out of our world when we came upon a group of children or young men that were loathe to see us pass them. The early speed they started with had clearly petered out as they walked briskly forward. After a quick glance behind to see two white girls gaining, they would sprint ahead widening the distance, and then slow back down to a walk. This would replay several times before they gave up and dropped behind, and it distracted us from our conversation. We dutifully collected our bracelets, shooed off a young boy making eyes at my friend, collected our tickets, and delighted in running together as we crossed the line. My ticket was marked 4 and hers 5. Wait… what?!?! 4 and 5? Seriously?!

We cooled down and waited for our two friends to finish. We had missed them crossing the line, but eventually caught sight of them leaving the field and decided to do the same. We weren’t sure if our places included prizes, but we didn’t really want to find out. In all honesty, I didn’t want to find out because I didn’t want to get in trouble for not handing in a slip. Better to sneak away than get admonished. Besides, all we had wanted was a good run, and we got that. However, after we caught up to our friends we all decided to go back to see how the awards ceremony would culturally play out. Our curiosity bested us.

As we picked our way through the crowd to get closer to the stand, we heard them calling out for places 1-5. So much for slipping in and watching others from the back. Our bright white faces shone, and they dragged all four of us up to the stand where they were organizing the men and women. One race manager physically placed us in a spot just off to the side. As they worked through the mess that was handing out prizes, they would occasionally start to search frantically for their misplaced white girls. Locating us just feet behind them where they last put us, they would say again, “Just wait, just wait.”

The problem was the cheating. There was apparently lots of it. And it’s not surprising. What was surprising was the quality of the prizes, which further clarified the massive amounts of cheating. First place got a bike, second place got a Bluetooth speaker, third place a cooler, fourth a fan, and fifth just the bag of Trukai collectibles (hat, umbrella, etc). All the other places got their prize plus the bag. When things got unpleasant, I understood why.

They awarded the prizes for men first. The first place winner had his ticket marking him as first, but he didn’t have a bracelet. He claimed that in trying to juggle the bottle of water and the bracelet, he had dropped the bracelet. It was a believable story. The race manager lined up all the other placeholders and asked them, as a group, if they saw this man win. Second and third place said they had seen him ahead of themselves and that they were happy for things to proceed despite the man not having his bracelet. A major part of life in PNG is group consensus, and we got to see that play out in this contrived context. It worked very well. Every man walked away content with their prize.

Then came time for the women, and that was predictably not as simple. I saw two precious girls on the stand with tickets placing them in first and second. They looked to be anywhere from 4 to 6 years old and I didn’t bat an eye. It’s totally within the realm of possibility that a barefoot four year old could school me in a 5k in this country. Unfortunately they didn’t have their bracelets. After much confusion and bustling, I overheard the Bullhorn Man (not using his bullhorn) explain to the guardians of these children that, “Prizes are meant to go to the people that ran or walked the entire route. They are not for children who got rides in a car.” They popped the two cuties to 4th and 5th place bumping us up to 2nd and 3rd. Third place was totally missing and I was starting to panic. I panicked because people were getting unhappy. The families of those girls had wanted the prizes associated with those positions, and I did not want the bright orange and yellow bike that would mark me as the person that gained from their poor cheating plan. Bullhorn Man kept calling out for the 3rd place female runner to please come forward. In between the repetitions of that announcement he would go on long rants about how, “This is a fun run! It is supposed to be fun! Do not bring your frustrations and squabbling to the fun run which is fun!!” I could have told him that fun runs and large prizes do not coincide well. Eventually an old woman started yelling from the side, dragging a teenage girl by the arm waving her ticket in the air. I was relieved. Here was the 3rd place runner and she would get the bike. Bullhorn Man seemed relieved until he looked at her ticket and saw there was nothing on it. No number at all. So, not third then. The old woman started screaming about how the race managers simply failed to mark her girl’s ticket as she ran in, but by golly she was third and the rightful owner of the bike! The race managers then came to us and asked if we had seen her come in ahead of us, just as they had done with the men. We had not and we couldn’t lie. We hadn’t been paying a lick of attention to anything around us and certainly did not foresee this circumstance. The temptation was pretty great to simply say, “Yes, she can have the bike,” but I was terrified that the person who actually got 3rd place would eventually show up to claim the prize. Then we would be liable for the wrong person getting the bike. They asked us several times, seemingly hoping to get a different answer, but we couldn’t give it to them. All the sudden they started announcing the female winners, handing out the prizes, and sending us on our way. Despite worrying the whole time that they would eventually admonish us for not having a slip, we walked out of the field laden with Trukai bags, a speaker, and a cooler without one word. They didn’t have our names, numbers, or addresses. Aside from our white faces, we were completely anonymous. And the fate of the bike was a mystery.

Fast forward two weeks. Brian received a phone call from an unknown number. He answered and heard a Papua New Guinean man say, “Brian?” We get calls from unknown numbers all the time, but rarely are they from people that know us. It’s always either a wrong number or a person just scamming. Unsure, he said he was Brian and then heard, “Your wife is Hannah?” More confused and just a bit concerned he said yes again. The man said, “Okay, she won the Fun Run and I have her bike. We knew she won the whole time, but we couldn’t get it straightened out there. Many people were cheating that day and we just needed to clear everyone out. When can I bring it by?”

I didn’t want the bike, and I still don’t want the bike. I can’t ride it anywhere for fear of identifying myself as one of the white girls that “won” the Fun Run, and I honestly can’t ride bikes without hurting myself. So… there it sits. I willed it away from me while we were waiting for the results on the stand, but it followed me home. Followed me despite the fact that I turned in no slip, told no one my name, and gave no one my husband’s cellphone number. Not surprisingly, anonymity as a white running girl just doesn’t exist here. And that’s my story of the Trukai Fun Run.