"Just Go Up and Say Hi!" - A Slightly Emo Rant

I take back what I said about the organization of Egypt- that it was the most likely thing to drive me crazy during my time here. It’s not. That’s easy to deal with.  Heading into my fourth week here, I’m starting to develop the opinion that I can deal with anything this country can throw at me. I can take whatever problems come up and work them out and keep putting one foot in front of the other. At the moment, I’m less concerned about culture shock. I can deal with that. I know how to find my classes and order food and work an ATM. I can be functional here. And it’s a relief knowing that.

I can survive in this environment using English and spending time with Americans. The dorms, the university, the district where I live, they are all designed for Westerners. I could spend the whole next year here and know very little more about Egypt than what I knew when I arrived. It is only by my own determination that I will learn Arabic or to function within a genuinely foreign environment. So, the current bet on what is the most likely to drive me nuts: myself.

I know what I need to do to learn these things. When I was in Germany, I learned far more about German culture than I had expected because I had such ample access to Germans (and pseudo-German Americans that have gone native. Yeah, that’s you, Kelly.) In that situation, it’s easy to ask questions or translations, and all this lovely language immersion that they talk about actually happens. So easy answer, right? Just make friends with the Egyptians that live next door? Or the gaggle of girls in the lobby? Right, easy? Wrong. Very, very wrong.  Because if there is a gaggle of girls in the lobby breaking fast and watching an Egyptian movie and chatting Arabic, the instinct of every American is going to be to turn tail and run. (And whoever is sitting there smoothly in your apartment saying, “Oh that’s easy. I’m sure they’re all nice, welcoming people. Just go and say hi!” Enjoy your smug comfort now ‘cause you have no idea. And if anyone comments on this post “Oh, you just have to get up the courage to do it!” I will fly back there and smack you.) In no circumstance is it more apparent that you are the outsider, and it is intimidating as all hell.

The Egyptians I’ve rubbed elbows with here are very kind people. I have not had a single bad experience with anyone. Not one. However, this is also an exceptionally intimidating group. This is not a culture where people sit quietly discussing issues where one might be able to slide in a smooth “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing…” No, this is a culture where people gather in large groups and talk to people they’ve known for years, joking easily in Arabic, and incomprehensibly, both in linguistic terms, and (my terrified brain assumes) in terms of subject matter. Also, there is a very notable air of money in this place. Nothing is more intimidating than being the least sharply dressed person in a group. I’m naked without my Gucci handbag. So yes, I should integrate myself among Egyptian friends. But when you can approach a group of raucously laughing Egyptian women, lounging gracefully in their silken hijabs and Prada sunglasses and air of long-familiar comfort and integrate yourself into a conversation held in a dialect in which you can barely count, then you can tell me that I just ‘need to go up and join them.”

Aaand you can tell I feel antagonized by this point. So who, you might ask, is telling you to “just go up and say hi?” That would be me. Hi. Yeah, yours truly. I want so badly to make this work, to squeeze every drop of knowledge and experience from this adventure, that you can be I’m after myself around every corner to step up and do what it takes to learn. Every time I settle down to read a book or to check my e-mail, or do anything, really, that is not working towards that end, I feel like I’m slacking on making progress. And I am- when I spend the weekend lazing around the dorm, I’m really not learning anything. However, nagging myself that I shouldn’t be reading on the bus on the way home hen I could be eavesdropping on conversations, I shouldn’t be doing these things that give me comfort and make me feel at home when I could be doing all these things that would expand my cultural horizons, is going to drive me slowly mad. So that’s why I amend my belief that some aspect of Egypt is most likely to be my most difficult thing to overcome. It’s going to be striking that balance of pushing myself and being comfortable, and not driving myself to muttering angrily at my other personalities that also reside in my psyche in the process that will be the trick.

Well, I’m going to go eavesdrop on conversations. But before I do, let me solemnly swear that I plan on doing EVERYTHING possible in the future to try and make study abroad students visiting CU more at home. I shall never let another foreigner go un-smiled-at.