Hash 4 – Hare and the Naming – Friday 15 December 2006

During the week Wes (the main Hash guy) sent an email round begging for Hare’s. To be a Hare you go out to the site several hours earlier and set the trail by dropping handfuls of lentils or flour for the Hashers to follow. It’s fairly straight forward, but they have a hard time getting people to do it. I guess coz you have to go out so much earlier.

Anyway, Chris and I volunteered to hare for this week. However, when we volunteered we didn’t realise that the first time you hare, you get named. That’s what we get for being helpful… Chris is going to help set the run and I’m going to do the walk. Basically it means that Chris walks 9 or 10kms dropping handfuls of flour with a guy from Holland called Piet and I walk about 4 or 5kms with two Egyptians Karim (Squashed Balls) and Mona (Should Have Been Blonde) dropping handfuls of lentils.

Anyways, this morning we met up with Piet, his wife Mary, their daughters Powla 11 and Doreen 8 and a golden retriever called Sandy that they were dog sitting. Essam our driver man dropped us off at a petrol station near the site and Piet and Mary picked us up from there.

We were suppose to meet the rest of the hares at 11am…we arrive just before 11am and by 11:15am the others still hadn’t turned up. Chris and Piet decided to set off. They loaded up a backpack with bags of flour and carried an additional two containers of flour. They had a GPS and compass and Powla went with them to help set the trail. They were nice and organised.

At 11:30 I was starting to get concerned so I rang Mona. She said yeah yeah yeah, we’re nearly there, we’re just setting up the signs… Anyway, 25 minutes later they finally arrive. In the meantime I’d been chatting with Mary and Doreen. The dog they were ‘dog-sitting’, that we’d thought was peacefully sleeping by the car, had disappeared. After a few minutes frantic search (it’s quite challenging looking for a golden retriever in the desert!) Mary got a phone call from Piet. The dog had wandered off – following their trail – and caught up with them. This is the most overweight, lazy golden retriever you’ve ever seen and it had just committed itself to a 9km walk through the desert! In the end they had to carry it up the steep bits – he just wasn’t coping!

Doreen had planned to play with Sandy while she was waiting for the proper Hash to being. Since Sandy had abandoned us she decided to come with us to set the walk.

So Mona and Karim finally show up and we set off. Mona had previously set 7 or 8 trails and Karim had only done one, so Mona kinda took over. She had the lentils and she was dropping them at random interval… being a little stingy I thought. All through the walk she and Karim were having little chats in Arabic… I think they might have been disagreeing over how to set the trail. Mona wanted to make it really easy and Karim wanted to make it really hard.

To keep ourselves entertained Doreen and I were running around. Every time there was a steep-ish section I’d send her down ahead of me so I could follow in her footsteps. About 3/4 of the way around Mona gave the lentils to Karim and he took off. The wind was blowing flat out and hurting her ears. After about 50 minutes we got back to the cars.

Setting the trail wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be… I think it would be better depending who you set it with. We didn’t have a plan and our trail crossed the runners twice. It was all wiggly too, so not easy to follow (as we found out on the actual trail).

From the start people took off in the wrong direction, people got confused between our trail and an old one that was there from a few weeks before. They missed a check point and they didn’t follow the trail much at all. In fact it was a complete shambles. I didn’t realise that the Hares were suppose to go near the front of the group and keep them on track without actually leading them. I asked if we were suppose to lead and they said no, but I didn’t realise we were suppose to provide directional support… oh well, I know that now.

Doreen and I were messing around and one of the guys had a go at us for running on the walk. It was a wide bit of the trail, not like we were running on a bit that was really hard to negotiate. It was really pissing me off. Mona had set the trail (I’d just really followed along) but she was at the back of the group and I couldn’t remember where the trail went. By the time we got back to the circle I was thoroughly pissed off. People kept bitching and moaning (I guess reasonably, it was a pretty shit trail), but it seemed as though the ones bitching were the ones who never set the trail themselves… Anyways, everyone made it back to the cars eventually (grumbling an all).

The runners had better luck. They stayed on trail and no one seemed to be moaning about it. Although Chris said he wouldn’t’ have set as long a false trails as Piet did. But all in all the run went quite well.

After everyone was back they called the circle. Thy harassed the virgin hashers and called in the sinners (people who’d forgotten to sign back in etc). Then Chris and I were called into the circle. It was our first time Haring so now we needed to be named.

First things first Wes took my scarf (that I had wrapped around me like a shawl). I said to him is this where you throw beer at us and he said yes. I’d come prepared and brought two tops. Unfortunately it was so firggin cold I had both of them on. So I took off my top and of course everyone starts yelling and carrying on chanting more, more, more. I went back to the centre of the circle in my tank top. Then they started calling for name suggestions. Wes said it was going to be hard to name us because we hadn’t been around long so people didn’t know us that well…

Chris was made go first. They asked him about himself he said Canadian, living in Denver, played hockey…working for the Ministry…I can’t remember what else. Then people stated yelling out suggestions. There were loads of options, ranging from Puck Seaman (not idea where seaman came from but the Puck is from the hockey) to Mother Pucker. They vote by yelling. Basically they call out each name that was suggested and people have to cheer for which one they like the best. When they called out the options Mother Pucker got the loudest cheer by miles so Chris is now and forever know as Mother Pucker.

While they were calling Chris’s possible names out Mary brought my scarf back over to me. She said wear it while you’re waiting or you’ll freeze to death. Even with it on I was still cold!

Once his name had been selected they started in on me. When they asked me about myself I asked Wes to be a bit more specific. I had no idea what to say. So he said where am I from I said Australia, originally Tasmania now Victoria. How old am I, am I married, have I ever been married (at which point ‘No Baggage’ was suggested). Then Wes said ‘so you’re 27, single and only here for 4 more months – that makes you the perfect girl to fool around with’. I think that comment combined with my taking my outer top off lead me to my final name.

They started calling out suggestions – the first being ‘Iceberg’ (coz I was almost turning blue), then because I was still single ‘Ice Maiden’ was suggested. Most of the suggestions were along these lines then someone yelled out Tassie Teaser. Everyone was laughing their butts off. Then they did the voting and Tassie Teaser was met with a resounding cheer.

So with our names selected we were handed beers and asked to kneel on the ground. I was made take my hair out (and shake it all around twice!). Then we put our hands over our beers and they said:

"By the Sands of the Saharra
By the Holy Waters of Sakara
On this Hash and Every other Hash
You shall Always Be Known as
Tassie Teaser”

Then they poured beer and sand all over my back and hair.

It was freezing cold, and I had beer and sand (so mud basically) all over me. It was so gross! This bit done we had to skull our beers and accept our new names.

Covered in sand and beer I then went over to Piet and Mary’s car and did a quick strip and change while everyone was still focused on the circle. I ripped my tank top off and used it to wipe most of the sand off my back. Then I pulled my now very ratty, beery, sandy, curls back into a hair band. Put my other top back on, wrapped my scarf around me for some warmth and returned to the circle. My hair was SO ratty!

By the time we got back Powla and Doreen were just being summoned into the circle. People were much kinder when choosing their names… Powla’s options were twig, twiggly wiggly, ponytail, and Tulip – Tulip won. Then Doreen got double dutch, munchkin and Dorito. Wes had been calling her Dorito all day and I thought that was a cute name so I cheered for that one. From now on Piet and Mary’s kids are called Tulip and Doritio :).

Last but not least was Piet. Technically Piet already has a Hash name but as he got it in Malaysia its too vulgar to be spoken. I fact when asked point blank in the circle what his original name was he said ‘not in front of the children’. This was then suggested as an alternative name. However given he is from Holland ‘finger in the dyke’ was the next suggestion (apparently there is some folklore story about a little boy from Holland who put his finger in the dyke to stop the water). Things deteriorated from there and his new name is now ‘Wet Fingers’.

The funniest thing was that he was happy with the new name because it was still so much better than his previous name (which he still wouldn’t divulge).

This over and everyone moaning about the cold the circle was brought to a close. Chris and I caught a ride back to Maadi and wandered around Road 9 for a while then went to the On On. Piet and Mary had suggested Dragon House as the On On venue (same place as last week) so we went there. The food was good again but exactly the same as last week. More people turned up this time. We were there so early so we were on the big table with a bunch of other random hashers and by the time Piet and Mary arrived they had to sit at a different table. It was fun but we were totally shattered by 8pm so we left.

All in all an interesting day… I would set the trail very differently next and I’ve got a new name… not sure its something that I’ll ever use outside the hash but I got off lightly I think :)