I was listening to a podcast the other day by Sundae
Schneider Bean, an expert in the whole expat/living abroad thing. The podcast
was about celebrating successes, even tiny ones. A lot of the time, I find
myself feeling frustrated about what I can’t do yet, or my lack of progress in
certain things such as learning Arabic. So the podcast got me focused on my successes
since I moved to Egypt, which, believe it or not, was 18 months ago.
My most recent success happened just the other day. The
Cairo International Book Fair was on, so I arranged to go with a few friends.
It's at a place described as “Nasr City Fair Grounds”. Despite
searching online and on Google maps, I just couldn’t work out where this place
is, which makes things more difficult with Uber because you can’t put the
destination in. So the options are to get an Uber with an unclear destination
(always a risk because generally they haven’t got a clue where they’re going
and can’t use the GPS), or get a taxi. In such situations I did what I always
do – I rang my husband and asked him to speak to the taxi driver. He refused.
He said if I tell you what to say, you can say it to the taxi driver. The
pressure! Having to say new Arabic words to a taxi driver and risk that
completely blank look! Anyway, I did it. He told me the words and I said them
to the taxi driver, who understood, and sped us off to the book fair. Where I
spent too much money on books, predictably.
I was inordinately pleased with this success, even though it
may seem tiny. Arabic is a hard language to learn for a native English speaker
for many reasons, so it’s daunting trying to speak new words when it really
matters, especially as Arabic has some sounds that English doesn’t. For
example, there’s one letter that sounds like you’re trying to swallow an A. I
tried to say Ma’adi to a taxi driver once, and it took him about 5 minutes to
understand me because of this letter. We spent the rest of the journey with him
drilling me to say it properly – without much success it would have to be said.
It’s all got me thinking about how much Arabic I do actually
know, and I surprised myself again. As mentioned above, a lot of the time I
feel frustrated by my lack of progress. I think it’s because of the huge number
of other things I’ve had to adjust to; my brain can’t take learning a new
language on top of all that. Having said that, when I think about it, it’s surprising
how many words I know. Inevitably, most of the words are the ones I need to
live an independent life in Cairo, but I have learned quite a lot of others. Some
of them are even useful, especially for scaring the living shit out of my team
when they think I can’t understand them (laughs evilly…)
As well as the small successes with the language, there are
many other things I can do which terrified me to begin with. I look back at my
early blogs, and buying toothpaste was a challenge. I have lots of small shops
where I live, and I like to shop in them. I can buy fruit and vegetables (and ask
for a bag), and most other groceries. The only shop I have a problem with is
the butcher, because I don’t know the words yet. So I buy most of my meat from
the supermarket. I can ask for a kilo of mince though (which turns out to be
quite a lot of mince). I’ve found a clothes shop which sells really good
clothes for work, and it’s not even an expensive Western shop in one of the
malls. It’s a proper Egyptian shop. For the first time in my life, I own a cat.
In fact I own three cats. This resulted in a number of new challenges; finding
a vet, a pet shop, a cat sitter, and a driver prepared to transport cats.
I’ve travelled all over Cairo by myself, in Ubers and taxis.
I’ve got the train to Alexandria on my own (not without incident as you’ll know
from my previous blogs). I can cross the road on my own (a significant
achievement in this city I can tell you!) I don’t feel inclined to drive in
Cairo, and I haven’t managed to get the metro yet, but all in good time.
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| The incredible Mohamed Ali alabaster mosque |
Probably my most important successes have been about
building my life here in Cairo, and part of this has been because I forced
myself to get out there and meet people. Obviously I’ve got my job, but the majority
of my social circle aren’t people from work. I’m an Internations consul for the
Arts & Culture group, and also The Written Word. I’ve been to parts of
Cairo that most tourists don’t get to, because they spend two days seeing the
Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum then move on somewhere else. It’s a shame,
because Cairo has layer upon layer of history and is absolutely full of
fascinating places and hidden gems. The writers’ and readers’ groups have
become extremely important to me, in fact discovering that I can write stuff
that people want to read is a complete revelation, and probably a bit more than
a small success. I have been published! And my article in Egyptian Streets was trending for a while! I have a small
circle of close friends that I see regularly, in fact I go out a lot more than
I used to when I lived in Britain.
I’ve managed to get through a lot of physical and health
challenges. Inevitably there have been stomach bugs (I’ve definitely had e-coli
and giardiasis – the latter of which made me ill for weeks). I battled all
summer with heat exhaustion; I’ve discovered my tolerance for heat is extremely
low, and I need to take twice daily rehydration sachets. I know this because of
another success – I’ve found my own GP. Well they don’t really have GPs here, I
just call him my GP because he said I can come and see him about anything. I
picked him because he had a kind face, which turned out to be a highly
effective strategy. I’ve also had to go to the hospital to have my trigger
thumb dealt with and also when I had the giardiasis because it gave me acute
gastritis. I’ve also been getting more migraines, probably because of the heat,
but I’ve dealt with that too. It really does help that you can get the drugs
delivered right to your door by a guy on a moped.
And on that subject. You can get absolutely anything
delivered to your door in Cairo. There’s a brilliant app called Otlob with all
the restaurants that deliver, including a pudding restaurant. I remember the
first time I plucked up the nerve to order – my shawarma and chips arrived half
an hour later. I do realise that being able to have pudding delivered to your
door any time of the day or night is not necessarily a good thing, which is why
I’ve now got myself a personal trainer and have started going to the gym. I
feel like I’ve got to the stage where I can start focusing on something other
than just surviving the day to day challenge of living and working in a country
with a fundamentally different culture.
A friend asked me the other day if I feel settled here in
Cairo, and I would have to say that I don’t. It’s not an either/or situation
though; every day that goes by, with the small and the big successes, makes
life here less strange and more normal. I’m pretty sure I’m close to the stage
where the normal outweighs the strange. There are a lot more good days than bad
days, and it is truly a privilege to live in a city that is riddled with
multiple layers of culture and history. A friend told me recently that she
really admires how I’ve built my life here in Cairo; and two friends have said
to me how much they appreciate the effort I put into the Internations groups.
Both these things made me feel all warm and fuzzy.
So I think I’ll stay. For the time-being, anyway.
