Hello, my name is Jessica and I am an awkward falang!

During our first weeks in this new country, we four young women who were new to Laos became an informal support group for each other, a safe place to vent about our cultural blunders and questions. Though we are still very much falangs (foreigners) we are no longer feeling quite so awkward, nor do we so each other all that often.
Occasionally, however, I do find myself slipping back into the awkward category. I am now that strange, white girl who jogs around my neighbourhood at dawn. As it turns out, although running here in Laos is perfectly culturally appropriate, it’s still extremely rare to see. But as I dodge chickens and potholes, speeding up to avoid mangy dogs and slowing down to let a herd of cattle pass, I catch glimpses of my neighbours lives as well.
I call out “Sa bai dee!” and I press my palms together and bow a little as I run by and they call out whichever word or two of English they happen to know, looking up from their cooking fires to grin at me. Their smiles widen as I call back in my increasingly less broken Lao. These 10 second encounters often set the tone of my day. And there is more. In the middle of November the “Lao Disabled Women’s Development Centre”, an MCC assisted project, is sponsoring a half marathon, a 10K and a 5K run to raise awareness of disability issues in Laos. I’m not quite up for that half marathon just yet, but we SALTers have made a pact to run that 5K.
There is one small obstacle. I have never really been a runner before, at least not since my 10 minutes of track and field fame in elementary school. But I look at the whole situation like this: two months ago I couldn’t read or write Lao and now, in the simplest sense of the words, I can. In comparison to that, how difficult can running be? I think it’s a challenge I’m ready to take on.