It's gone. Over with. Khalas. The initial awe and wonder and enthrallment that comes with being in a new place has worn off. Now it's just life. Life that I have to get up, face, push through, deal with, and come back home to every day.
Cairo. What happened between you and me?
I know I should be inspired by all of the magic of the city around me, but instead I just want to hide in my bed and ignore my alarm going off at 6:30. Again. No no no! La' la' la' that is so rude, alarm. I'm not ready to face the city.
Walking.
When I first came to Egypt, everything was new. Everything was fascinating. Every mundane, ordinary life instance I came across was met with awe and every annoying, frustrating thing was given a free pass because it's a new culture and it's exciting.
Now the cockroach I almost stepped on is just like, ugh, please don't; and the dead cat in the ditch that's been there for three days just stinks. Can somebody move the dead cat?
Walking.
Walking through the market that is on the street between mine and the metro. Tables with sunglasses, batteries, pens, and plastic bracelets. Fresh fish laying on ice. Brightly colored leggings and bras. Clothes hanging from lines overhead. Piles of bananas. Piles of cabbages. Piles of tomatoes. Spices packaged in twisted clear plastic bags. Tables of pots and pans. Salesmen in dirty galabayas. Veiled women shifting through more veils and scarves for sale on a table, bright colors, pretty patterns. Newspapers spread out on cardboard on the ground, red headlines in Arabic shouting about terrorism in the Sinai. Two teenage girls sit at a table in the sun, giggling together, one is flipping an empty plastic bottle around in her hand. An old woman sells bags of cut vegetables.
It's a traveler's paradise. Every item for sale; every expression on the faces of the locals; every interaction; every piece of garbage on the ground and every beam of sunshine is a Kodak moment, just waiting to be taken, Facebooked, instagrammed, framed and put on display in someone's living room in Massachusetts. But these are just my neighbors. And they are just in the way between me and the stairs to the metro. Push, shove, push, hustle. Get out of the way. Magic gone. So over the smell of fish.
Walking.
Out of the market, into the other street. Keep my bag on the shoulder away from the street so cyclists can't snatch it. Don't make eye contact with anyone I don't need to, it's easier to avoid unwanted interactions. Ignore taxis. Look like I know where I'm going. I know everything I need to know here and yet know nothing at the same time.
In the streets there are cars double parked. Triple parked. I don't know how this country functions. What happens when the person who parked first has to leave? It stresses me out. Everything stresses me out. I feel like the person who parked first, trapped and helpless.
This is normal. I've been here for four months, gone from home for seven. This is a normal stage of cultural adjustment. The push back. The uncomfortable mix of being familiar and overwhelmed, success mixed with failure, and by knowing how things work more you realize you know less of how things will work in the future and how uncertain they are.
But just because it's normal doesn't mean it isn't hard. I get stressed over the stupidest things. Like concepts of meal times. This should not be the cultural difference that gets to me, it's harmless. Who cares if Egyptians like to eat breakfast at ten, lunch at four, and dinner at ten. They can eat when they want, that's fine. But when somebody asks me at five pm if I have had lunch yet, I get stressed just thinking about how awful my day would be if I hadn't eaten lunch yet. How do people function like that?
Walking.
In the traffic, there's two men pushing a red car that stalled out. There's a little school girl in the passenger front seat, glasses, backpack, with a look on her face, "what is my life right now?" Seriously girl, what are our lives right now?
It's hard to accept that no matter how long I live here, how many times I walk these streets, catch the buses, ride the metro, and buy oranges, I will never stop hearing "welcome in Egypt." I can't fit in. And it gets old.
But no matter how tempting it is to dream of home, and imagine going back to where I came from, I know it wouldn't make it better. If I could teleport myself there right this second, I wouldn't fit in all over again, but in a different way. I would try to tell people mish mushkila, wa7eshteenee, saba7 el fol, and no one would understand. What would I do when I craved hawawshi and needed to chill with the gang at our favorite cafe, drinking tea and shisha. Shai koshari and ma3sal to be specific.
So I'm here, and I need to push through this tough phase of cultural adjustment. It's hard now, and there will always be a level of difficulty, simply because I chose to live in Cairo. But I want to be here, I know deep down I want to be here.
Walking.
I turn a corner. The sun is shining on the pavement, and the sidewalk glares light and casts shadows around the skinny trees planted in a line. I smell that smell of parking lot, exactly like walking out of Kalkaska's Northland in the summertime with a bag of groceries, on the way home from the lake. A wave of... relief? Comfort? Familiarity?
I don't know. I don't know why that makes me feel better. But this tough phase of adjustment, this too shall pass.
Cairo. What happened between you and me?
I know I should be inspired by all of the magic of the city around me, but instead I just want to hide in my bed and ignore my alarm going off at 6:30. Again. No no no! La' la' la' that is so rude, alarm. I'm not ready to face the city.
Walking.
When I first came to Egypt, everything was new. Everything was fascinating. Every mundane, ordinary life instance I came across was met with awe and every annoying, frustrating thing was given a free pass because it's a new culture and it's exciting.
Now the cockroach I almost stepped on is just like, ugh, please don't; and the dead cat in the ditch that's been there for three days just stinks. Can somebody move the dead cat?
Walking.
Walking through the market that is on the street between mine and the metro. Tables with sunglasses, batteries, pens, and plastic bracelets. Fresh fish laying on ice. Brightly colored leggings and bras. Clothes hanging from lines overhead. Piles of bananas. Piles of cabbages. Piles of tomatoes. Spices packaged in twisted clear plastic bags. Tables of pots and pans. Salesmen in dirty galabayas. Veiled women shifting through more veils and scarves for sale on a table, bright colors, pretty patterns. Newspapers spread out on cardboard on the ground, red headlines in Arabic shouting about terrorism in the Sinai. Two teenage girls sit at a table in the sun, giggling together, one is flipping an empty plastic bottle around in her hand. An old woman sells bags of cut vegetables.It's a traveler's paradise. Every item for sale; every expression on the faces of the locals; every interaction; every piece of garbage on the ground and every beam of sunshine is a Kodak moment, just waiting to be taken, Facebooked, instagrammed, framed and put on display in someone's living room in Massachusetts. But these are just my neighbors. And they are just in the way between me and the stairs to the metro. Push, shove, push, hustle. Get out of the way. Magic gone. So over the smell of fish.
Walking.
Out of the market, into the other street. Keep my bag on the shoulder away from the street so cyclists can't snatch it. Don't make eye contact with anyone I don't need to, it's easier to avoid unwanted interactions. Ignore taxis. Look like I know where I'm going. I know everything I need to know here and yet know nothing at the same time.
In the streets there are cars double parked. Triple parked. I don't know how this country functions. What happens when the person who parked first has to leave? It stresses me out. Everything stresses me out. I feel like the person who parked first, trapped and helpless.
This is normal. I've been here for four months, gone from home for seven. This is a normal stage of cultural adjustment. The push back. The uncomfortable mix of being familiar and overwhelmed, success mixed with failure, and by knowing how things work more you realize you know less of how things will work in the future and how uncertain they are.
But just because it's normal doesn't mean it isn't hard. I get stressed over the stupidest things. Like concepts of meal times. This should not be the cultural difference that gets to me, it's harmless. Who cares if Egyptians like to eat breakfast at ten, lunch at four, and dinner at ten. They can eat when they want, that's fine. But when somebody asks me at five pm if I have had lunch yet, I get stressed just thinking about how awful my day would be if I hadn't eaten lunch yet. How do people function like that?
Walking.
In the traffic, there's two men pushing a red car that stalled out. There's a little school girl in the passenger front seat, glasses, backpack, with a look on her face, "what is my life right now?" Seriously girl, what are our lives right now?
It's hard to accept that no matter how long I live here, how many times I walk these streets, catch the buses, ride the metro, and buy oranges, I will never stop hearing "welcome in Egypt." I can't fit in. And it gets old.
But no matter how tempting it is to dream of home, and imagine going back to where I came from, I know it wouldn't make it better. If I could teleport myself there right this second, I wouldn't fit in all over again, but in a different way. I would try to tell people mish mushkila, wa7eshteenee, saba7 el fol, and no one would understand. What would I do when I craved hawawshi and needed to chill with the gang at our favorite cafe, drinking tea and shisha. Shai koshari and ma3sal to be specific.
So I'm here, and I need to push through this tough phase of cultural adjustment. It's hard now, and there will always be a level of difficulty, simply because I chose to live in Cairo. But I want to be here, I know deep down I want to be here.
Walking.
I turn a corner. The sun is shining on the pavement, and the sidewalk glares light and casts shadows around the skinny trees planted in a line. I smell that smell of parking lot, exactly like walking out of Kalkaska's Northland in the summertime with a bag of groceries, on the way home from the lake. A wave of... relief? Comfort? Familiarity?
I don't know. I don't know why that makes me feel better. But this tough phase of adjustment, this too shall pass.
"impressed" :)
ReplyDeleteKeep your courage! Your writing is beautiful - I felt as if I was there with you. Love and prayers!
ReplyDelete