Time does indeed fly. This year it will be five years since I left my native Malta to work in Belgium. One would suppose that by this time I would have got so used to living here that I could consider myself half Belgian.
How wrong would one be! There are so many factors working against this. There's the language, or in the Belgian case I should better say languages. To integrate properly in a newly adopted home country you must learn their language properly. Here you need to learn two languages, since half the population refuses to speak the other national language. So I generally stick to talking Maltese, since I'm nearly always in the company of Maltese people anyway, both at home and at work. Our job is translating EU documents into Maltese, which means that my colleagues are mostly Maltese. It almost feels as if I never left Malta, except that the view outside the office window shows Brussels instead of Valletta.
There's the internet, which makes it so easy to keep in touch. We read the Maltese newspapers on line. We watch Italian TV on satellite, and Maltese TV on dive.com. Through the internet we can interact with our friends all over the world including, mainly, in Malta. It's like we're living in a bubble - an extension of our home country planted in Belgian territory. So much for integration in our newly adopted home country...
Actually, some degree of integration is inevitable. It grows on you. You get used to the weather cycle, the public transport system, the road network, the housing, the people and their surprisingly relaxed way of life, traffic jams, beer that was made in heaven, lovely towns, parks and forests - and the Belgian running scene.
At first it seemed to me there wasn't any running scene at all. I arrived in Belgium in the beginning of winter, and winter in Belgium is mostly cold and dark. I managed to maintain a regular training schedule of sorts, but it was really tough. There were so many important things to sort out, and the discovery of the Belgian running set-up was certainly not among my top priorities. I did take part in the popular Brussels 20km race in May, with about 25,000 other participants, but that was about it. I had no other information whatsoever about running in Belgium.
Perhaps I should have joined a local running club. But I never got round to it, partly due to the language problem. I stayed in touch with the Maltese running scene, keeping fit through regular training, and on various occasions during my frequent visits to Malta I would take part in events that I knew so well - the Dingli 10, Birżebbuġa, the Pembroke 10k, the half marathon...
It was and still is like living two separate lives in parallel. When in Belgium, with its day-to-day realities and the work and general life routine, Malta seems so remote that it's like a dream. But every time we're in Malta the situation flips over and we immediately switch to Malta-mode as we meet our relatives and friends and go around all the familiar places we know so well. We feel as if we had never left, and now it's Belgium that seems a very remote existence.
Bit by bit, I came to realise that the running scene in Belgium is every bit as lively as it is in Malta. A marathon is held every year in Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Vise (close to the Dutch border and in fact going to Maastricht in the Netherlands and back), in Ypres, on the coast close to Oostende, and others of which I may not even be aware. There are numerous road races, organised by the various local sports centres. Most regions have their own annual "challenge", consisting of a number of races within the region spread out throughout the year, quite similar to the St Patrick's AC race participation scheme, with points allocated by categories and according to the placing in each race.
Having now accomplished two marathons in Belgium (one in Brussels, the second in Antwerp), a handful of other occasional events, and after finally achieving my tenth marathon, quite appropriately in Malta last March, I'm now embarking on close to a full immersion in the Belgian running scene, through participation in what is known as the Watermolen Cup. This is the challenge, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, belonging to the region where I live, Vlaams Brabant. It will be an opportunity to discover other towns and villages in my region, and to pit the strength of my legs against that of the Belgians.
Which reminds me - there's another good reason why I didn't choose to join a Belgian running club. I'm already a proud member of St Patrick's Athletic Club, and that's the club whose glorious green and yellow colours I wear and represent in my Belgian running exploits.
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