lost in translation

The more time I spend abroad, the more I realize that sometimes, things jut don't translate. Let's just say, I feel more American right now, living abroad, then I ever did in Texas or Maine.

I teach a private class on Thursday nights to a principal of the high school in La Latina here in Madrid. Last week, I was trying talking to her about the marathon and the connection with the Gandhi Ashram. What I thought would be a five minute conversation on practicing action verbs, turned into an hour long explanation about fundraising in the U.S. Let's just say, the idea of running to raise money for something does not work here in Spain. In all honesty, I had a pretty difficult time explaining the connection myself. I have always admired people who will commit themselves to something in order to raise money for a cause but, for me, it always seemed a bit of a stretch.

With this said, I would like to explain this seemingly random choice to run a marathon in Madrid to raise money for some children thousands of miles away in India. For me, running has always been the best way to understand and learn about a new place. It's the tempo. There are times in a run when you connect with a certain landmark and really begin to understand that place.

In Kalimpong, it was a fence with orange flowers and a green bench. A few mornings a week, I would wake up before school (about sunrise) and run with two friends. In most parts of the world, seeing girls run in spandex is an anomaly. When I run in Spain, I always think I have something on my face, but a run in Kalimpong came with a whole new level of staring. I might as well have been an amusing alien.

It didn't help that in Kalimpong, there is no such thing as flat. There is up and there is down. In the mornings, we would always run into the kids on their way to school. As we willed our legs to go on for another minute, the kids cheerfully wished us good morning with a delighted "good morning miss" as they raced past us without any struggle at all. Needless to say, we felt a little more ridiculous when we struggled to find enough air to wish them a good morning back.

Everyday, we would go a little farther, and everyday we would notice something new about the curvy road on the way up to the main center of Kalimpong. While avoiding speeding trucks and stray dogs, we grew accustomed to the stares of people along the road as they grew accustomed to us. By the end of the trip, we knew who would come out to wave to us in the morning, what time the kids would get to school, and when each truck would come around the corner.

It seems strangely appropriate, then, that a run connects both these cities. Maybe running doesn't really have to do with buying the kids some new chairs, but at the same time, some of my best memories were seeing the kids in the mornings race us back to school. Who knows, maybe this will never translate but just a thought.