Workin' out

The most recent news is that I have been going to the gym with my host dad and two host sisters. Who would have guessed? The gym is pretty much all weight lifting devices and posters of body builders in Speedos hung up all around the room.

My host dad is friends with the owner, Nordine. Nordine is a 5ft body builder, with a large personality. When we show up he moves all of the weight machines to the edge of the room and he usually runs us through some stretches and then goes into some kind of aerobics workout. This is good for me because I am trying to get a routine together to start doing aerobics with the women in my town.

Nordine gets mad at me when I can’t touch my toes, I don’t want to do summersaults, or I refuse to do the old fashioned sit-ups. The fact that I have a lot farther to reach and a lot further to fall doesn’t seem to cross his mind. While we listen to the song “Blue” by Eiffel 65 play over and over and over I have to explain to Nordine why I wont do these acrobatic moves while he argues with me that I just can’t. How do you explain to a very confident, gym owner that some of the exercises he is trying to get you to do are A) out dated and B) bad for you. He certainly doesn’t want to hear it from a woman (who obviously doesn’t know what she is talking about) and in broken Arabic, nonetheless.

However I think we made some progress because the next time we met we made the transition from sit-ups to crunches and from the one song on repeat to a compilation of at least 5 songs. And I can honestly say I don’t know the last time I worked out as hard as we do at Nordine’s gym. Now all I have to do is transition from this work out session to leading my own. I knew those years of jazzercise in high school would come in handy someday!