A Normal Kind of Foreign

As I sit in my sunny living room, drinking sweetened Nescafe with milk and listening to the adhan (the Islamic call to prayer) broadcast from the city's many minarets, I can't help but feel so very normal being here. Normal, in fact, has been the operative word of the last three days, although foreign also comes to mind when taking in the panorama of many-tiered rooftops, satellite dishes, billboards, mosques, laundry, temporary rooftop dwellings, rubble, cats, and office buildings surmounted by Islamic carvings that is visible from my balcony. Egypt is foreign because it is so different from my historical/inherited normal paradigm of the United States, yet its foreignness feels simultaneously normal because I've learned how to operate comfortably in it, thereby creating a new normal paradigm for myself that is entirely Egyptian. I am aware that Egypt's foreignness feels normal to me, if that makes any sense.

Some of this sense of normalcy derives from the fact that I am now living in an apartment downtown instead of in the isolated Western bubble of the American University of Cairo dorm. Situated among corner grocery stores and falafel (ta'amiya) stands, with the sound of taxis roaring through my bedroom night and day and the call of the muezzin loud enough to wake me up in the morning, I feel as though I'm part of the life of Cairo in a way that I wasn't before. I do all my shopping at the stores in my neighborhood, I pay 1150 LE in rent each month to an Egyptian landlord, and I have a job that contributes to the Egyptian economy. Each day I'm earning my right to be here, no longer a pampered American student abroad but a valid member of Cairo society. This knowledge of my newfound position buoys me up with confidence, making it easier to ignore the dirty stares of Egyptian men on the streets and giving me optimism that I will one day completely overcome the language barrier here.

I've thought a lot about what it means to belong, to fit in, to earn my right to exist in a metaphysical sense. Not to conform, but to carve out a place for myself that is both unique and universally accepted, to be liked for who I am and what I bring to the table without altering either of those things to make them more likable.

Maybe one day I'll grow up and stop being so self-indulgently self-absorbed...or maybe not.