The Race Where the Cheese Always Wins

Nobody has ever caught the cheese. Send this to your most competitive friend. Once a year, on a very steep grass hill in England, someone rolls a large wheel of cheese down the slope, and a crowd of people run after it.

Hakuna aliyewahi kulikamata jibini hilo. Tuma hii kwa rafiki yako mshindani zaidi. Mara moja kwa mwaka, juu ya kilima chenye nyasi na mteremko mkali nchini Uingereza, mtu huviringisha gurudumu kubwa la jibini chini ya mteremko, na umati wa watu hukimbia nyuma yake.

The hill is so steep that most runners cannot stay on their feet. They roll, tumble, and slide most of the way down, while the cheese picks up speed fast enough to outrun every single one of them. Whoever crosses the bottom first wins, since actually catching the cheese has never really been possible.

Kilima ni chenye mteremko mkali kiasi kwamba wakimbiaji wengi hawawezi kubaki miguuni. Wanaviringika, wanaanguka, na kuteleza sehemu kubwa ya njia chini, wakati jibini hilo linaongeza kasi haraka vya kutosha kuwashinda wote. Yeyote anayefika chini kwanza hushinda, kwa kuwa kukamata jibini hilo kwa kweli hakujawahi kuwezekana.

Nobody knows exactly how the tradition began, only that people in the area have written about it for roughly two centuries and probably practiced it for longer. Every year, new runners from other countries arrive to try anyway, and every year, the hill wins as often as the humans do.

Hakuna anayejua hasa jinsi desturi hiyo ilivyoanza, isipokuwa kwamba watu wa eneo hilo wameandika kuihusu kwa karibu karne mbili na huenda waliifanya kwa muda mrefu zaidi. Kila mwaka, wakimbiaji wapya kutoka nchi nyingine hufika kujaribu hata hivyo, na kila mwaka, kilima hushinda mara nyingi kama binadamu wanavyoshinda.