The Olympic Medalist

Yesterday we found ourselves sharing a cup of tea in the home of an Olympic medalist.

Anita and I visited Kenyatta University outside of Nairobi. This is where Anita lived with her parents from age 5 to 10. It’s an isolated campus on the outskirts of the city, comprised of various zones for housing, academic and scientific buildings, sports fields, etc. We were thrilled to find that the mosaic mural that Anita’s mom had created 23 years ago for the university library entranceway was intact. It’s a gorgeous piece of colorful art entitled “Knowledge Uplifts” – and the name-plate memorializes the artist Marjorie Mambo.

We continued our search for the houses that Anita had lived in during her time at KU. All we had to go on were some vaguely remembered addresses from her father…as well as Anita’s own vague childhood memories of where each house was located. At one point I inquired with a man in the campus neighborhood. Samuel was happy to hear Anita’s story and immediately committed himself to helping in our search. A big and jovial man, Samuel is in his 40’s, has 6 kids, plays bass in a band, is an ex-Nairobi policeman, and now works in security for the university.

Together we searched the neighborhood of identical duplex houses – all the while Samuel was laughing and joking, and greeting all his neighbors with more of the same. After finding a professor who remembered Dr. Mambo from 20 years ago and visiting Anita’s primary school, we bid Samuel farewell and tried our best to thank him for his unbelievable hospitality.

Next we went to a different part of the campus to find Anita’s last house. It was there that we struck up a conversation with some neighbors who invited us into their home for tea. We quickly learned that Prof. Dr. Mike Boit was quite an accomplished man…

Upon telling Dr. Boit that I grew up in Colorado, he told us the story of how in 1974 he won the Boulder Bolder (Colorado’s version of the NYC Marathon – but 10km). Apparently a local man who was also named Mike was favored to win and the large crowd along the route was cheering enthusiastically “GO MIKE” – for which Mike Boit mistakenly understood to be cheers for him. He had planned to run the first 2km of the race and then drop out as it was only a training run for his specialty – 800 meters. But after 2km, Mike Boit was in the lead, just in front of the other Mike (who’s name he still didn’t know), and didn’t want to disappoint all his ‘new fans’…so he went for it and won the race!

That same year he won bronze in the 800m race at the Montreal Olympic Games. Around that time he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated competing against a famous Cuban runner.

Mike and his wife Lillian are now both Professors at Kenyatta Uni. Their children attend Texas Tech so they find themselves traveling to the US often. Anita and I hope that one day when they pass through New York we’ll be able to return the favor of having the Boit’s into our home for some tea and conversation.