The Real Challenge to Staying Fit

Somewhere across town the first prayer call breaks the dark silence around 4:30am and is soon interrupted and overlapped by mosques scattered in every direction. Each one seems to have their clock set to a different time, so the calls stretch on for several minutes.

I am half-conscious. I know that the mosque next door has yet to sound, and that the caller seems to have a cold these days. As he coughs and rasps “Allah ekbar…” stopping to clear his throat, I take comfort in the fact that I have an hour until my alarm will go off, and roll over, pulling my fuzzy blanket around my shoulders.

I run before dawn for two reasons: to beat the heat and to avoid being seen in pants. Some of the other female volunteers have been called “Hobara” for being out after sunset, so I do whatever I can to maintain what’s left of my reputation. During the day I often wear mulafas, which are floor-length veils that leave only your face, hands and feet uncovered. Lately I’ve been experimenting with more Western (yet still appropriate) clothes to see how I’m treated. So far it’s been alright, but I do get more attention, more calls of “Nasraniya, ha!” (Hey, white girl!), and I get ripped off more often at the market. Being seen running… and in pants… that wouldn’t be so good. Even though I try to get out and back early I’ve still startled the occasional man on his way to the mosque. For this reason I wear a short sarong to cover my hips, and, more importantly, the place where my legs meet (gasp!). Amanda and Ashley run a little later than I do, but they bring mulafas with them to put on over their running clothes on the way back.

To get to the raised gravel road that runs a horseshoe around the edge of town I take a 7 minute walk, winding between houses, past the high school and Ministry of Education. I pass the slaughtering field where goats and the occasional cow or camel are cut open, drained, skinned and put into the trunks of old Mercedes to be sent to the market and mishui stands where swarms of flies wait to land. Remarkably, it doesn't smell bad there. It's a little farther down the trail where some unseen carcass is left rotting, the smell threatening to turn my stomach inside out (good thing I haven't eaten breakfast yet).

This raised path is the only suitable place to run--not too public, and not scattered with the softball-sized rocks that sit on the parched desert pavement around the high school and Ministry of Education. Trying to run before you reach the path can be treacherous. Especially when you are wearing cheaply made, oversized sneakers that have "A B C Zidane 2007" written on them.

I found these shoes, awful in so many ways, among the faux leather men's sandals sold in town, and paid about $4 for them... it was probably too much. The selection of women's shoes is reflective of the local female culture. You have two choices: the pastel foam-plastic half-moccasin that seems to have been formed in a mold, and the open-toed mule with a spectrum of gaudy embellishments. The first would seem to be comfortable yet frumpy (in a Crocs kind of way), yet I've been told that they are surprisingly painful to wear, and a preferred hideout for scorpions (you always see the women who wear them kicking them a few times before slipping them on). And if those are uncomfortable, I can only imagine trying to wear heeled mules in sand. No wonder women have to waddle so slowly down the street.

With all these obstacles holding me back, I find it even easier to give in to that voice telling me to sleep in... "you can run tomorrow!" But on days like today, when I've made it out and back, and done sit-ups and pilates, I feel like I've already accomplished something before the sun was even up. That is what gives me the energy to face the rest of my day.