As of today, seeing as I'm leaving Egypt on June 28, I have seventeen days left in this country.
Seventeen.
Saying that seems incredibly and utterly unreal. I remember when I was beyond exited that I had
five months to go before my departure, and now this experience that I've looked forward to for a quarter of my life is going to be over in seventeen days.
There are, admittedly, things that I will be happy to be leaving behind. The verbal battles that people of different political views have with each other. The problems happening as a result of the ongoing recovery from the effects of the revolution (i.e. inadequate garbage pickup, very wide socioeconomic gaps, the unstable politics and the people's dissatisfaction with the government, etc). The heat. Language barriers. The population density. Some people's conservatism. And other things of this nature.
And there are many things that I've missed about home. My family. My friends. Snow. Christmas. Frozen yogurt, Thai, Chinese, Mexican, and Indian food (which are all difficult to find here), plus my mom's cooking. Feeling 100% confident in my surroundings and being able to express myself without any linguistic inhibitions whatsoever. The quality of the American educational system, as stressful as it can be at times. The wide open landscapes and abundance of green spaces, that are difficult to find in urban Egypt. The lovely lakes and forests that abound in my home state of Michigan. And other things like that.
But at the same time, there are things that I am going to miss so much about this country and will be heartbroken to be leaving behind. Alexandria itself (i.e. the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the good weather, having the Mediterranean Sea be a fifteen minute walk from my home, etc). The adaan (call to prayer). Speaking Arabic. Being in a constant state of learning and discovery, gathering knowledge about the local culture and history. The perfect balance between having a home and a family, and freedom, that I've built up in my time here. Egyptian food. All the places that I love to visit. Some of my teachers. My home. My neighborhood. My friends.
And most of all, my host family. I love my host family so much; in my time here, they have gone from being a group of complete strangers to being my second family. They treat me like a son and a brother, and after more than nine months of living in their home, I feel like one of them.
And I'm going to miss them so much.
Saying goodbye to them is going to tear me to pieces inside. There's no two ways about it.
And moreover, in spite of the fact that my departure has been on my mind a lot lately, simply put, it doesn't feel
real that it's about to happen.
A few days ago, when I was Skyping with my family back in Michigan, and I saw the house, the backyard, the living room, they all looked so familiar and yet so foreign to me after over nine months of being away. And the fact that I will be in that house in almost two weeks simply feels unreal.
I liken this to how I felt in the months leading up to my departure from home when I was coming here. I thought about my departure and my upcoming exchange constantly, but, in a way, it didn't really feel
real that I was leaving until maybe the last week or two, and I didn't actually get the feeling of "
OH MY GOD, THIS IS REAL! I'M DOING IT!" until I said goodbye to my dad when he dropped me off at the gateway orientation back in New York City, all those months ago.
I think that this time around, it will work similarly.
A few months back, the idea of leaving this place used to utterly and completely terrify me every time I thought of it. I developed this paranoia of it that was temporarily fueled by the arrival of my return flight information back in March. Then that randomly vanished about a month or two ago. For a while I couldn't tell if it was because I had begun to lose my fear of returning to the United States, for whatever reason, or if I was just becoming numb to it in a way, not realizing that it was going to happen. And I now think that the latter is true. It simply doesn't feel real that it's happening.
One thing that I was feeling so paranoid about before was, apart from the idea of leaving this place, the process of readjusting into my life back home. Many returnees had stories to tell of reverse culture shock and feeling out of place in their own homes that worried me greatly. I wondered if I would experience similar feelings after the end of my experience.
But now, I'm simply not sure what will happen. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel after I get home. I just don't know, whether or not I will feel out of place or have reverse culture shock. I just don't know.
What I do know, is that it will certainly be a strange transition at first. There are things that it will probably take quite a while to get used to. For example, the absence of the background sounds of traffic and the adnaan will probably be very strange, and make it feel very quiet at first. Also, I'm getting the feeling that it will be very strange for me at first to be speaking English all the time. Despite the fact that I speak, write, use, and think in English a lot here, I speak Arabic most of the time, especially when I'm with my family. And I'm so used to leaving my home and using Arabic to get from place to place and buy things that the idea of communicating in English in order to do these things seems almost strange.
Simply speaking English twenty-four/seven is probably going to be very strange at first, and I can tell that there are Arabic words that I will be subconsciously wanting to say, that have no direct translation into English. This has already happened to me a lot while Skyping with family and friends back in the States.
And besides reverse culture shock and feeling out of place, another factor which fueled my paranoia of leaving, which still is a very real concern for me, is that this experience is almost over.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I've been wanting to go on this experience for a quarter of my life. For four years, since I was twelve, this has been something to look forward to, to work towards, to be proactive for, to aspire to.
And now it's almost over. And I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with myself after it is.
Moreover, I also have to deal with the fact that, although my host family will always be my other family, and this city will always be my other home, and this country, in many ways, will always be my other country, my life here as I've known it throughout my exchange will end when I step onto that plane in the Cairo International Airport in seventeen days.
Meaning, I can always come back here and visit my family and friends, and I will, of course. But it will never be quite the same as it is now.
And I guess that that is one of the main things that worries me about my rapidly approaching departure date.
Additionally, I've undeniably changed in a number of ways since I came here. I've grown up a lot mentally and emotionally. I've become much more mature and independent. I feel much more confident in my decisions, opinions, choices, and tastes. I feel like I understand how the world works so much better, if that makes sense. I've learned an incredible amount of things about Egypt, about people, and about
life in general. And I've gained so much knowledge, respect, and love for another country, Egypt, another religion, Islam, another family, another culture, and another way of life, while at the same time gaining a new love for and appreciation of my own country, faith, culture, traditions, and family.
I think back to the guy who boarded the plane back in the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on September 1, 2012, and I find it astounding to think about who he's become.
And that time feels so far away, so far in the past. Even my first days in this country are very distant, almost dreamlike memories that feel like they happened eons ago. And the days leading up to my departure from home before I came here feel even longer ago, as though they happened in another life. It's so strange.
And part of me already knows that I'm going to have trouble explaining just how these kinds of changes feel to people back home.
Up until this point, whenever I've thought about things that I want to see or do, I've always thought about them at least relatively calmly, because
"there's so much time left; I'll be able to do everything I want to without any trouble!"
But the truth in that statement is very quickly fading.
In fact, I'd say it's just about gone at this point.
With seventeen days left, I need to take advantage of the time I have left to the fullest. Do and see everything that I want to. And enjoy everything that I'm going to miss after I have to leave.
After seventeen days.
That's all for now. I'll leave you all with a short blurb that I found circulating in one of the AFS Facebook groups about pre-departure sentiments. Although I didn't write it, I certainly think it sums up these tremulous feelings quite well.
"A year has passed and now we stand on the brink, of
returning to a world where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything and
yet nothing being the same. In a couple of weeks we will reluctantly give our
hugs and, fighting the tears,we will say goodbye to people who were once just
names on a sheet of paper to return to people that we hugged and fought tears
to say goodbye to before we ever left.We will leave our best friends to return
to our best friends.
We will go back to the places we came from, and go back to
the same things we did last summer and every summer before. We will come into
town on that same familiar road, and even though it has been months, it will
seem like only yesterday. As you walk into your old bedroom, every emotion will
pass through you as you reflect on the way your life has changed and the person
you have become. You suddenly realize that the things that were most important
to you a year ago don't seem to matter so much anymore, and the things you hold
highest now, no one at home will completely understand.
Who will you call first? What will you do your first weekend
home with your friends? Where are you going to work? Who will be at the party
Saturday night? What has everyone been up to in the past few months? Who from school
will you keep in touch with? How long before you actually start missing people
barging in without calling or knocking? Then you start to realize how much
things have changed, and you realize the hardest part of being an exchange
student is balancing the two completely different worlds you now live in,
trying desperately to hold on to everything all the while trying to figure out
what you have to leave behind.
We now know the meaning of true friendship. We know who we
have kept in touch with over the past year and who we hold dearest to our
hearts. We've left our worlds to deal with the real world. We've had our hearts
broken, we've fallen in love, we've helped our best friends overcome eating
disorders, depression, stress, and death. We've lit candles at the grotto and
we've stayed up all night on the phone just to talk to a friend in need. There
have been times when we've felt so helpless being hours away from home when we
know our families or friends needed us the most, and there are times when we know
we have made a difference.
Just weeks from now we will leave. Just weeks from now we
take down our pictures, and pack up our clothes. No more going next door to do
nothing for hours on end. We will leave our friends whose random e-mails and
phone calls will bring us to laughter and tears this summer, and hopefully
years to come. We will take our memories and dreams and put them away for now,
saving them for our return to this world.
Just weeks from now we will arrive. Just weeks from now we
will unpack our bags and have dinner with our families. We will drive over to
our best friend's house and do nothing for hours on end. We will return to the
same friends whose random emails and phone calls have brought us to laughter
and tears over the year. We will unpack old dreams and memories that have been
put away for the past year. In just weeks we will dig deep inside to find the
strength and conviction to adjust to change and still keep each other close.
And somehow, in some way, we will find our place between these two worlds.
In just weeks."
