Socks in the village

As I get ready to go for a run in the late afternoon heat through my village I am struck by how strange it feels to be wearing socks. When I came to my village mid December of last year I was determined to keep up my running routine. After a few early morning runs where I had to fight off mean looking dogs I gave up on the idea of exercise in the village. However, after my recent trip to Apia, I am determined to keep up my routine. I am taking a new approach. Instead of waking up before the sun rises to get a run in before school and fend off the dogs as they are waking up from their nightly snoozing, I am going to attempt to run before “sa” in the late afternoons. My reasoning is multi-layered. First off, I will get more sleep and therefore be happier going to school. Secondly, more people will be out and about getting ready for dinner and doing their afternoon chores of weeding and taking down the laundry. This means that a. I will be more social, seeing more people on the roads, and b. there will be more people out to protect me from mean dogs if anything were to happen. There is no third. It won’t be any cooler, but at least it won’t be the mid-day heat. So here I am, my feet snuggled up in socks and shoes, my body dressed in an oversized tee shirt, spandex, and a lavalava wrapped around my waist to avoid being culturally insensitive. Now all I have to do is get out there and run.