I now have a phone and a phone number.
[This is where you applaud me.]
My level of excitement over this trivial event demonstrates my incontrovertible allegiance to the Y/Next/Millennial Generation. I might not own a television, but I enjoy having the option to interact with real people should I so desire. Oh and I like my Macbook too– but I don’t plan on spending the next 30 months sitting in front of it when there’s a whole world of vendors out there, just waiting to sell me crappy stuff.
Still, I am sitting here, and I am kind of criticizing myself for doing something that I could very well be doing back at home. It kind of reminds me of the time I was in Bangkok for work, and the only other person who could venture out with me to be a tourist wanted to wait a few hours so that he could get to level 6 million or whatever in his World of Warcraft computer game. Is that what I have become? Lord I hope not- I just think that I need to remind myself of a few things:
- I’m one of the new kids here. It takes time to make friends. And for me, it usually takes even longer.
- I only just got a cell phone, and it doesn’t come populated with a list of people who:
- won’t drive me crazy
- won’t act crazy, or
- won’t drag me into situations that I term “bad crazy”. Like making me go to place like clubs where I feel compelled to use my alias “Lisa”
- I’m not really alone here, even if I give myself that misleading impression.
That last one was just presented to me in the form of an apropos frying pan-over-the head quote from Runner’s World (which I am sure originated elsewhere):
“No one is an island. No one runs in a vacuum. There is always someone watching you leave the house, dig it out, come back, and do it all over again. You are being watched by a roommate, a brother, a spouse. The driver of every passing car. You are being watched by future generations … We are inexorably entwined within each other’s influence. You may run by yourself, but no matter how early you start, no matter how remote your location, you never run alone.”
I have run a few times here in Dakar now, and even though I have lost my treasured women’s running group since moving, I can always feel them alongside me.
“If I breathe this air, I’ll die. If I don’t go out and run, I’ll get fat and die.”
It’s a little tricky to run in this city. You have to simultaneously play hopscotch with broken pavement and will yourself to believe that your teeth can filter the thick smog emanating from a thousand poorly maintained vehicles that speed by. But that’s okay somehow, because tons of people run, and there are tons more people just out and about, watching as I huff and puff and try not to succumb to heat exhaustion. Each and every one of these individuals, for better or for worse, is the new version of what I left back in the District. This is my new running group. The added bonus here or course is that none of the vendors selling three-piece suits or phone cards will approach you if you are out on a run. Nice.
So how have I decided that I don’t run alone? It’s simple. Without fail, every day that I have gone out for a run I have been given an enthusiastic round of applause from fellow runners. Even store guards tell me that I have “du courage” for fairing du sport (my franglais) when I pass on by in Le Plateau. The most visible testament to the fact that I am surrounded came this morning though. As I was finishing up my six mile run, ending back at the embassy- I was greeted by cheers form the embassy guards who apparently watch me come and go every time. It wasn’t clear until today that they have been watching me, and they all now know I run. It was a neat feeling, being recognized in that small way.
So it is with this random cobbling of observations that I know the contact list on my new phone will blossom. With a little luck I will get some people out on the corniche with me, and with a little more reaching out on my own part I’ll be certain to not be spending many more nights typing semi-coherent blog entries with which to torture you.