The comments in response to my post Running Barefoot, Dehydrated, and Naked, Or Not made me think about ways I try to mask my abundance and the subsequent lie I am tempted to believe that this somehow makes the economic difference between myself and many Djiboutians less true.
I’m not the only one to struggle with fully feeling my wealth in the form of running shoes and iPhones and water bottles while running past homeless people and children begging for coins. There are feelings of guilt, moments of coldhearted turning away, kilometers of only feeling sweaty and strong. There’s always the burning of excess calories while some around never have excess calories.
But the options I think of: don’t run, workout inside, join a club, they don’t solve the problem. In fact, they blind me to it, they help me pretend the disparity doesn’t exist. (Nothing wrong with working out inside – I do it often. Weights, yoga, the desire for a little a/c or a movie while sweating, napping children…are totally legitimate.)
Not running does nothing for the people in my neighborhood who don’t have enough to eat or quality housing or access to education. Joining a club doesn’t help them either, though it contributes to the local economy and introduces me to new relationships with guards and staff and other women who exercise. On the other hand, maybe that money could be better used. On the other hand, maybe the money I spend on coffee could be better used. On the other hand and the other hand and the other hand…Exercising inside doesn’t help them either, but it helps me pretend they aren’t there, it helps me avoid their eyes and their names and their realities.
I’m not going to say that when I run, I run for Djibouti. Running for a cause is a post for another day (and I have a friend who brings running for a cause to a whole new level, you need to hear about her – that’s you Emily…). I don’t run for Djiboutians. I run for me. I run for the freedom and the strength and the outdoor wind in my face, even the sand in my teeth. I run because it takes me away from the daily grind. I run to get time by myself, to get lost in music or an audiobook or my breathing.
I don’t run for Djibouti. Even when I pinned Djibouti to my back in the Fargo Marathon, I wasn’t running for Djibouti. I love Djibouti and thought it would be fun to hear people try to pronounce it when I ran by.
But, when I run in Djibouti, I’m engaged in Djibouti. I’m entering the dust and heat and sunrises of it. I’m passing the donkey carts with loads of grass and sticks, jumping over cat carcasses. Smelling rotisserie chickens and fresh baguettes. I’m waving at women weaving baskets and humming along with the call to prayer. I pound my fist on taxis when they drive too close and explore side streets that lead to the ocean in the middle of town. I’m greeting shopkeepers and promising fruit stand guys that I’ll come by later for their delish-looking mangoes. I know when construction starts a few blocks over and when a new family set up a shack in the empty lot on the corner.
So I don’t run for Djibouti, I run in Djibouti. Instead of hiding my abundance from Djiboutians (though I do that sometimes), when I run, I am learning to engage with them.
And I don’t feel the disparity in those moments. I don’t know, maybe they do, but I have had men selling bananas tell me the only reason they went out to watch the half marathon was because they thought I would be running in it, felt they knew me, and wanted to cheer. In the space of that brief exchange, there wasn’t room for economic differences. There was smiling and words and a person-connection.
This idea of ‘relationship’ doesn’t solve issues of poverty, I’m not pretending that. But at least running in the streets makes me aware and forces me to think, relate, respond. I’m still working on how to live with my plenty with integrity, how to be generous without feeling pressured, how to live with gratitude without guilt, how to live with my eyes wide open and my heart tenderly malleable.
This issue is a marathon issue, probably even an ultra. I have a long ways to go.
In what ways do you feel compelled to mask your abundance? Do you find it helpful or harmful?
i still haven’t figured out the masking abundance issue. sometimes i do, sometimes i don’t, sometimes my abundance blesses others, sometimes it doesn’t… sometimes i feel awful, sometimes i feel overwhelmingly thankful, sometimes i just feel selfish and sometimes i don’t feel at all.
i have, however, finally (how many years into this gig and just a few weeks shy of going home for awhile?) figured out a way that i can exercise outside and be in the community without feeling so dang guilty about the fact that the reason i can and choose to do so is because i have so much more – money, time, calories to burn, etc. i’m just hoofin’ it to take the kids to school, to run to get groceries, etc. instead of hopping in the ac car, i’m walking – couple weeks into this now and i’m enjoying it, a lot… especially the greeting folks along the way.
Yes – walking to your errands, that’s great. I’ve wanted to do that, we don’t live too far from place, but it is so dang hot. And I know you’re hot too, so how do you get to a place and look half-way decent? No sweat soaked shirt or sweat dripping from your face or stinking it up? That’s what stops me from doing most errands on foot.
lots of deodorant?
seriously,i don’t worry about it but with all the power cuts of late, no one is getting anywhere looking halfway decent and even if i was sitting in my house, the sweat would still be running the face flushed, so…
i do wear light, socially acceptable clothing. i often put on a head scarf cause that is how the ladies here deal with their “perspiration,” and it also keeps my head out of direct sunlight and i time my walking so that i “warm up” before i get out of the house, walk fast and hard to begin with and then give myself 2-3 minutes to cool down before entering. when i get home, i can hop into the shower or splash my face off. 🙂
seriously, though – i don’t worry about it too much when everyone else looks hot and sweaty all the time anyways. only difference is that on my lighter colored skin, the red face shows up more readily.
It is funny to me the different ways people are affected by things. Me – I struggle with the sweat. You – seem to handle it better and my husband does too. By the way good post today – I liked that comparison between how kids talk and how adults talk online!
thanks.
I too have a hard time sorting out my love of running with the reality of running here in Mongolia. There are so many emotions involved in it for me and I don’t know that I have an answer or a peace about it. I do know that it helps me stay sane and healthy and that in turn helps me to be more emotionally available for sorting through thoughts about poverty, abundance, relationships and context.
In many ways running feels like a selfish pursuit to me- although I do try and take that time to soak in the places and people I am running past- to pray for them, to see them, to open myself up to all of that, both the good and the bad.
Running helps me orient myself in a community and in a place and I am grateful for the ways it has led me to see and know different parts of the world.
But when my friends here ask me about exercise or what I do to stay healthy? I immediately try to hide my routines and activities because I know that I am privileged to do something like exercise and I feel guilty. I don’t think that’s how they want me to feel, but it’s there just the same.
Thanks for giving me more to think and reflect on!
I’ve had similar thoughts about it feeling selfish to run – taking time away from other things. But I don’t want to live with that kind of guilt complex. At the same time, I want to be wise and intentional about how I spend my time…ever the balancing act, isn’t it?
Hey! I made it into your blog post! Now I’m famous, haha 🙂
Oh I have big plans for you Emily! No really, I’d like to write about what you were doing with running and raising awareness and all that. Might not be for a while…
What a beautiful post. You captured so many of the tensions of being a foreign “have” in a land of so many “have nots.” And I think you hit the nail on the head. Not running, or living your relatively comfortable lifestyle, does little to help those who have less around you. The guilt is also unproductive. But being intentional about engaging in that world, when it is so much easier to insulate yourself from it, about learning from that world, about trying (even if clumsily) to see beyond those differences and help when you can, is all we can really do. I don’t think I’ll EVER be comfortable with these disparities and I probably won’t ever completely shed the guilt. But, as long as that doesn’t crush me or send me running behind walls, I’ll take that discomfort and try to learn from it.