I’d known about it for awhile and had heard great things but didn’t really do anything about it until my housemate lured me in. Hash House Harriers are a worldwide network of people who love running and drinking with a bit of a frat party atmosphere thrown in for good measure (or so I’m told… we don’t really have frats in Canada). They’ve been described as ‘drinkers with a running problem’ which sounds about right up my alley. Except for the running part.

My housemate invited me to join him last Saturday. Normally the runs snake around the streets of Kigali (or whichever city they’re in… there are 1913 hash groups across 1247 cities in 183 countries) but this time they arranged to have it out in the countryside. We met at a hotel and were divided into cars and made out way in a convoy to the run location. The scenery was stunning but pretty much everywhere in Rwanda is beautiful and it was great to be out in the countryside enjoying it instead of passing through on a bus being bombarded with dust.

I get the impression that Hash House Harriers has a lot of history and a lot of obscure rules and ceremonies. When we arrived the new people were pointed out and welcomed, songs were sung and then the main Hash guy, Rambo, gave a quick briefing on how everything works before the hares (the people who set the trail) gave an overview of their trail.

Basically the Hares come earlier to mark out a trail using ‘shreddies’ which is fine paper shredded up. Piles of shreddies are left on the ground along the trail that they set and that’s the only way you know which way to go. There are also some tricks and fake trails thrown in to encourage teamwork among the harriers (I guess that’s what the runners are called?). The trail is usually anywhere from 5 to 8km long and it ends in a pub where the socialising beings.

I was surprised to see that most of the participants were locals… maybe three quarters. For some reason I expected it to be a big an almost exclusively expat thing so that was really cool. For the 2000 fee (about $3.50) we got brochettes (meat on a stick), pop and beer. Plus we were lucky because that day there would be a naming ceremony. If you’ve been to more than 10 hashes and also set a trail once, you’re given a hash name. I had already met ‘Sweet Tits’, ‘Ganja’, ‘Backyard Booty’ and ‘Juicy Pumpkin’ so I was curious to see what names the two girls would get.

After having a few questions peppered at them from the group, the person-to-be-named leaves and the group throws out some suggestions to Rambo who was acting as a sort of MC for whole thing. There were plenty of perverted suggestions. Fortunately ‘Pussy Farmer’ and several other dodgy names were rejected and ‘Pussycat’ was decided on for the first girl. The second name chosen was ‘Snake Charmer’ which was a vast improvement on ‘Goat F**cker’ which has also been suggested along with a few other perverted suggestions. I was surrounded by a bunch of inappropriate drunkards. Cool. The newly named girls were doused with beer and covered in red dirt from the ground before brochettes were passed around, beers downed, and dancing ensued.

If you’re easily insulted then you might not like the Rambo guy yelling at you to drink a beer or yelling at people to shut up and pay attention. I imagine it’s sort of like a mild hazing ritual type thing. Plus there’s loads of swearing and perversion. It’s probably not for everyone and one of the new girls sitting near me looked slightly horrified but if you like a bit of inappropriate madness (like me), you’d fit in well.

One the ride home things got pretty interesting. We had 12 people crammed into an SUV that had actually crashed on the way up to the run and had a nice dent in the door. The guy who crashed it was banished from driving so the aforementioned Pussycat took the wheel on the way home. Everything was fine (although I can’t speak for the six guys crammed into the back) until something went wrong with a disc (burnt or something… I know nothing about cars) and the car wouldn’t go anywhere. We were stuck about 20 minutes outside of Kigali in the pitch dark.Fortunately a small minivan type bus passed by and we were rescued only 10 minutes later.

I really enjoyed myself. It’s a great mix of outdoors, exercise, booze, meeting new people and bizarreness, if that’s even a word. I can see myself making it a weekly thing. Has anyone been on a hash run in their own city? They’re pretty popular and a great way to meet people in a new city so you should check it out, even if you’re only backpacking through a place.