Abraham Rotich stood motionless next to the track at the Southwest Athletic Complex, confused. It was Aug. 26, 2000, his first day in Ames — make that his first day in the United States — and the Kenyan native had no idea what was going on.

Rotich was witnessing the Beer Mile. There were more than 30 people running in an event in which the goal was to drink one beer per lap. People were drinking and vomiting as they ran. Abraham doesn’t drink, so he just observed what was going on. After a truck with the letters “DPS” on the side had pulled up, the participants ran for the woods. Abraham stood there, not realizing there was a cause for concern.

“I thought that maybe this is part of the race,” he said. “I didn’t realize that most of the people drinking were underage. I saw DPS written on the side of the truck, but those letters didn’t mean anything to me.”

Earlier that afternoon Abraham’s new track coach, Kevin Bourke, had picked him up at the airport and dropped him off with his roommate, Corey Ylinen. As soon as Bourke, former ISU cross country coach, left, Rotich joined his new roommate and future teammates for the Beer Mile at the outdoor track.

After running away, Ylinen had realized that his roommate was left behind and yelled, “Police!”

This frightened Rotich, who immediately had images of Kenyan police brutality.

“Man, I was scared,” he said. “I decided to run then, too.”

Looking back, Abraham laughs at his first experience in the United States.

“I tell my friends, they think it’s funny,” he said.

Ylinen said Rotich definitely had an “interesting introduction to American college life.”

Abraham is from Eldoret, Kenya and was trained by the 1988 Olympic gold medal winner in the 1,500-meter run, Peter Rono. Rotich and Rono are members of the Kenyan Nandi tribe, a sub-group of the much larger Kalenjin tribe.

Being a part of the Nandi tribe, which has produced many talented runners, meant a lot to Abraham growing up, he said.

“I used to see 50 to 100 people running every day,” he said. “We ran all the time. But it wasn’t until high school I got serious about it.”

It was Rono who knew Bourke from his time spent in the United States. He told Abraham about Iowa State and the competitiveness of the Big 12, thinking it would be a good fit for the runner.

After Abraham settled in at Iowa State, he started looking for schools for his younger brother, David, to attend.

David ended up at Jackson, Mich., at Spring Arbor University, a small Christian school. David said he felt he was a bit more prepared for the United States than Abraham because he heard his brother’s stories and had experienced bigger Kenyan cities, such as Nairobi and Mombassa.

“Those cities helped me cope with different people, and it’s different than the rural society that we grew up in,” he said.

After breezing through two years at Spring Arbor as a two-time national MVP in the NAIA, David decided to join his older brother in Ames.

“I wanted more competition,” he said, referring to the rise in talent to the NCAA.

Both brothers found the United States was nothing like they’d expected. They pictured a completely urban area like they saw on TV: Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.

“But instead I got cornfields and pig smell,” Abraham said.

“And Boone!” David said with a grin, noting that the nearby town isn’t exactly a metropolis. “Nobody in Kenya would believe that the United States has gravel roads or homeless people.”

The brothers live with Marilyn Haag, an Ames resident who Abraham met his freshman year at Oakwood Road Church. When Haag found out Abraham had nowhere to stay for Thanksgiving, she invited him to join her family’s celebration.

She did the same for Christmas and then invited him to stay with her permanently after she found out he had nowhere to stay for the summer.

“It’s like having two sons,” she said with a smile. “Their folks did all the work of rearing them, I just get to reap the benefits.”

Despite being away from their parents in Kenya, the brothers stay in contact with them. Abraham said he text messages his dad an average of three times a week and calls him once every two weeks.

As for the future, Abraham has landed a job in Des Moines, working for TMC Transportation as a fleet manager. He is engaged to swimmer Gail Olson, with the wedding scheduled for May 20, 2006.

David says he isn’t sure what the future holds for him but has enjoyed spending time with his brother in Ames.

One thing David said he is not comfortable with is the association he gets from being a Kenyan runner.

“People assume that if you’re from Kenya, you’re fast,” he said. “They don’t understand how much training we go through. We’re human beings just like any other human being.”