I must be a cultural difference. When I went for my morning run today I was joined by a small kenyan. I’m not even sure if he was a young one or just very little one. He had shorts and a t-shirt on and he had been walking with the primary school students near my house. I ran past. Next thing I knew I coudl hear his footsteps, running, just behind me.
I don’t like it. I **think** that in my culture if someone I didn’t know started to run behind me, just out of my field of vision, nobody would be supprised if I felt uneasy and even offended. What do you think? I did a double back at the head of the maram road and let him get ahead of me. He was running faster than I wanted to go anyway and he soon gained on me and I fell into my normal slow stumbling jog by myself.
Maybe its to do with space. In England we keep ourselves to ourselves pretty much all the time. Sometimes even when we’re in bed with our spouses: you have your side of the bed and I have mine and if we should want to have sex, keep the lights off. Maybe its because England is such a densely populated place, especially in the cities, that we want to maintain that “personal space” with a litle sign outside saying “please approach from the front and wipe your feet”. Having small dark people appraoch from behind, without announcement or introduction, is somewhat unsettling.
I find the last part of the jog dull. There are few features in the landscape to distract me, no houses and such like until the last couple of hundred yards. Its a real test to remain determined to run on that stretch. Once my jogging stalker had left me I got into my usual half-asleep daydreaming of faraway places mindset and the time passes while my feet trundle on over the red soil.
Comments are closed.