100% Victory

First of all, Happy Birthday Nate!!

Now a story about running.

I've been running here for about 1-2 weeks. Yup, just as people in my neighborhood were beginning to get used to me, I throw 'em for a loop by running! A lot of people here walk, but I have not seen a lot of people running (although the Chennai Marathon is next Sunday, announced only yesterday, so you'd better train fast!). I start by walking circles on my roof early in the morning to beat the heat. Then I stretch outside my door and take off for about 20 min. I wear scrub bottoms and big Tshirt I found I my flat. People stare, kids laugh, but who can blame them?! One smart ass young women yelled, “run faster!” I just wave and smile.

At first I only ran to my bus stop, down the main road to the next bus stop and back into my neighborhood, then ran around my block for a while. One day I went a little farther into my neighborhood and found a yard with a small temple in it. So most days I run there. Sometimes I feel awkward/disrespectful running around a temple, especially when I see people take off their shoes to enter the grounds. But, then I see people ride their motorbikes through the grounds for a shortcut and/or kids playing cricket there and I feel better.

My landlord said I should run around the neighborhood more to learn the lay of the land. So this morning I tried something new. I ran out to Anna Nagar, a nearby neighborhood that I had been to before, and on my way home I was on the main road and I decided use a different entrance into my neighborhood, about a 3 min walk away from my normal entrance. As I was doing it, I kind of knew it was a bad idea, but I always run past this entrance and really wanted to know how it connects to the rest.

After 5 min of running, I was lost. I kept walking, for another 15 min, still lost. It's hard to explain, the whole neighborhood is not that big, and it is kind of sandwiched between 2 main roads, so I couldn't have been that far from my house, but there are lots of little roads and dead ends and turns. Another difficult thing is that I dont really know the name of my road, or the roads leading to my house. Also, I forgot to mention that addresses changed a while back (no one can tell me exactly when this happened) so every house/place has a new and old address, further complicating things. Again I wasnt panicked or anything, just lost and annoyed.

Eventually I asked a woman how to get back to the main road, knowing that if I got there I could easily find my way to my house, even if it was the long way. She pointed me in a direction (people dont give clear directions, this is also why I didn't want to ask), and then things started to become familiar. I saw a store called White Milk that I had noted before and started to see these funny fliers hanging up that say “Learn English Grammar- 100% Victory!!”, so I knew I was getting close. I turned a corner and sure enough, there was the temple yard, complete with kids playing cricket!

Another situation resolved! 100% Victory!