he Old Mutare Valley at dawn. Most of my hiking takes place in this beautiful valley!
One of the side benefits I enjoy while teaching at Africa University is the wonderful opportunity to do abundant walking. The campus alone offers many good walking possibilities, and it also makes a good base for great weekend hikes. Early during my stay this year I decided on a personal goal of taking 10,000 steps a day. That’s a target that I’ve hit on some vacations, but never on a longer-term basis.
I kept track with my pedometer as the semester moved along, keeping a record of my daily and weekly totals. I didn’t hit 10,000 steps every day, going as low as 7800 steps on a few weekdays, but I was able to put my daily average over 10,000 steps with my longer weekend hikes. In fact, when I wrote down my entries last evening, I found that I’ve averaged just over 11,000 steps a day since arriving in January. In the thirteen weeks I’ve been here, that adds up to a surprising total of over one million steps. That wasn’t even on my radar screen at the beginning, but I’m happy with it. Every step has been a joy!
