A Square peg in a round hole.

The most common question I get asked by my friends is, 'what are the major cultural differences?'  I hate it when people ask me that question because the list of things is so long and exhaustive that it really can't be answered in a simple way.  Sometimes it feels like I have a whole heap of rules I need to learn and follow.  Other times it's an obstacle that Mena and I need to problem solve to get around. 

My favourite cultural difference to talk about it the way Egyptian, or Arabic people in general do their names.  It's totally different to the western traditions.  Western people have a first name that is given to them that is individual to the person.  Their second name is also individual to the person.  Oh yeah, I know, some people are named after relatives, but it's not a rule or a law that you have to do that.  Then your last name is your family name which is passed down from your father or bestowed upon you at marriage.  Now, Arabic names are generational, like reading the generations in the bible.  For instance, Mena's fathers name is Michael, his grandfathers name is Kamal and his great grandfathers name is Habib.  So, Mena's full name is Mena Michael Kamal Habib and our son if he is named Bob (which he won't be) will be called Bob Mena Michael Kamal.  They only list the first four names, otherwise it gets a little crazy.  What about the girls I hear you ask, yep, same with the girls.  If we have a girl and call her Gertrude(which we won't), then she will be called, Gertrude Mena Michael Kamal. 

Wives don't change their names to their husbands name, they keep their fathers name.  Which means that our family would have a father known as Mena Michael Kamal Habib and a mother know as Peggy Elizabeth Blachford and two children called Bob Mena Michael Kamal  and Gertrude Mena Michael Kamal.  All I can think of at this stage is "What a nightmare that will be when it comes to school forms and stuff like that".  How can we keep the Arabic tradition and the western tradition at the same time? 

Well, we both decided that I would take my husband's name (I'm a traditional kind of woman).  Mena was kind of chuffed with this idea and I think he liked me changing my name to his name.  We had 3 last names to choose from though, Michael, Kamal or Habib.  As I didn't like Kamal or Habib I chose Michael.  Now our kids will still have all the Arabic names but in Australia we will only state the first three, Bob Mena Michael and Gertrude Mena Michael.  It does mean that both our children will have the same middle name, but I think it's nice that we keep that tradition intact.  In Egypt they will learn to state all four of their names.  Problem solved! 

That is a good example of a cultural problem that we kind of worked out together.  However, when a western girl moves to an Arabic country some other adjustments need to be made (at least while I live here).  The most obvious ones include the clothes I wear.

·         I can't wear low necklines or capped sleeves.  My dresses and skirts should go past my knees.  I should try not to wear fitted things. 

·         Then there are rules about the house.  I'm not allowed to have a male in the house while Mena is not home, even if he comes to visit with his wife.  I'm not allowed to go and visit a house with a male in it without Mena with me, even if I'm going to visit the man's wife. 

·         I can't be visible in the house when a workman is visiting to fix stuff I have to hide in a room or go to my neighbour's house. 

·         I can't leave the house or go out of my building on my own; I have to go with Mena or a trusted friend. 

·         I can only greet woman with a hug and kiss on the cheek, never a man.  Can't even kiss my own husband on the cheek in public.

·         It's not appropriate to smile at someone you don't know in the street (you have no idea how often you do this without even realizing it).

Ok, so you think a lot of this stuff is a bit over the top, but, most of the rules are there just to protect you and keep you safe.  Some don't require that much effort at all.  I wasn't really put out too much by the rules regarding clothing as I was never the kind of person to wear short skirts anyway.  Other rules, like, not being able to go out without a friend is kind of hard for me.  I hate shopping with other girls.  I like taking my time on my own to go shopping.  I like the idea of going where I want when I want.  This rule has taken some time to adjust to. 

It pays to be flexible, adjust your expectations and don't hold on to stuff too tightly.  I've had to really evaluate what makes me who I am as well as consider what is important to Mena.  There are good things about some of these changes.  I really feel like I'm cared for, loved and protected at times, other times I can feel kind of restricted and limited, however, on the most part that has everything to do with your own attitude towards things.

Home is where your heart is.

Now I have lived in lots of different places before, but there is something unique and special about the flat I share with Mena.

When I moved out of my parents 4 bedroom low set house at the age of 17 to join the Air Force I lived in a dormitory.  When I was about 20 I moved out of the dorms and into a little 3 bedroom house that I rented with my Air Force house mate.  When I went to Uni at the age of 25 I was back in the dorms again before I got a bit tired of the teenagers and decided renting a granny flat would be the best option for me.  When I got my first teaching job in an Aboriginal community I lived in a few different houses and shared with a couple of different teachers.  After my stint in the community it was back home to my mother.  I kind of needed the break from all the moving and temporary accommodation.  I had been here and there all over the place for about 12 or 13 years.  I just needed to settle down and find a place to call my own.

Now I have settled down with my new husband on Mahmoudaya Road, Dr Girgis Building, Aswan.

This flat kind of fell upon us.  It wasn't our first choice.  We were originally offered a rooftop 'granny flat' in a friends family building, but unfortunately that fell through 3 weeks before I was due to move to Egypt.  When Mena told me this bad news about the flat my jaw dropped.  I was moving to Egypt in 3 weeks and I had nowhere to live.  More than the panic I felt in my stomach, I felt extremely sorry for my Mena.  I knew that having a good place for us to live arranged before I arrived was really important to him and the stress of looking for such a place was entirely on him alone.

What goes through your head when you are moving to a place like Egypt in 3 weeks with no place to go to....well to be very honest with you, I think I was nervous about it for about a day.  Until I went to church and talked about it with my church family.  I don't know how it happened, but for probably the first time in my life I just let it go.  God would provide what I needed in just the right time...and he did.

When I got home from church that afternoon Mena sounded relieved.  A doctor friend of his who had offered to let us rent in his building had said he would be more than happy for us to have the flat above his.  The only thing was, it needed to be built.  At that time it was just an empty shell, just bricks and mortar.  The race was on.  Work began the very next day and workers were there 7 days a week trying to complete the flat enough for us to live in.  Just so that you can understand, Egyptians have their own timezone and it seems to move a lot slower than the one in Australia.  We knew people who had taken 6 months to a year to renovate their flats in Aswan.

Our flat was completed to a livable state in 4 weeks.  When I got to Aswan I spent 1 week in a hotel before we were able to move in.  I mean there were things that weren't finished, like the kitchen and other bits and pieces.  The workmanship really did reflect the rushed effort to get it completed.  But, it was done and we were home.  Now we are on the 4th floor of the Dr Girgis building on Mahmoudaya road.  God knew what he was doing when he put us here.  We have excellent neighbours and without them I would be totally lost in this country.  This flat is not just a home, it offered a connection to a fantastic Egyptian family.

Step by step after that the incomplete things have been kind of completed.  First things first was the kitchen.  Then connecting the hot water system.  Then installing the exhaust fans in the bathroom and kitchen (although connecting them to electricity is a whole other job).  Air-conditioning in the lounge room, a washing line out the window in the second bedroom.  A water pump installed so we can have running water all the time (I wait in anticipation as that will be any day now).

Step by step things are being completed.  Slowly our flat is becoming a home.  There are no pretty things like trinkets and pictures on the walls, all the furniture is second hand and by Australian standards it is small, but slowly it is becoming a home and in the process of building it we have learnt a lot about renovating a flat in Egypt and about each other.

They are humble beginnings.  I can already tell that we will speak fondly of this little flat when we are old.  Although I pretty sure that if I asked Mena where our home was we would both agree, it is wherever we are.

How did I get here?

Ok, where to begin.  My name is Peggy Michael.  I'm from Brisbane, Australia and I live in Aswan, Egypt.

How did I get here?  That is the question I often ask myself when I find myself in a situation that highlights just how foreign I am.  I mean, I could tell the back story in great detail, but then this would no longer be a blog, more a novelette.  Let's just say that, I met my husband while cruising on the Nile river.  He was working in a little tourist shop on the cruise boat and once we met, there was no turning back.

It was the Australian Christmas school holidays 2011/2012 and I was taking a tour of Egypt, Jordan and Israel.  My mother jokingly warned me before I left her at the airport not to marry an Egyptian man while I was away.  I met Mena within my first week of being in Egypt, we clicked and from that moment.  When I left him and continued on the rest of my tour it was clear we couldn't be apart.  We kept in regular contact with each other on skype and he asked me to return to his home town of Aswan, Egypt to meet his mother and father.  The idea of travelling back to strange and unfamiliar place to meet a man I hardly knew so he could introduce me to his family was a little scary.  When I asked my mother for advice on what to do, she naturally begged me to return to Australia.  But there was something about Mena and the connection we had that told me in my gut that it would be ok.  So, I jumped on a plane and headed back to Aswan.

I don't think I fully realized just how committed Mena already was when I made that trip.  It seems that 'dating' is a western idea that is inappropriate in Egypt, so according to Mena's friends, we were already engaged to each other.  This was something he told them in order to limit the gossip amoungst his friends and family and he assured me that although he was telling his friends we were engaged I had no obligation to him and if I decided I didn't want to see him again after this visit he would just tell them the engagement was broken off.  But, by the end of my week visiting his family before I returned home to Australia to start another school year, it was clear to both of us that we planned on spending our lives together.

What would this mean?  Where would we live?  How would we share a life together?

Everyone had their opinion about our relationship.  They either thought we were crazy, or that I was being taken advantage of or well...that we were nuts.  But the bottom line was, we knew each other in a way that counted the most.  The details would come later.

Once I got home to Australia the plans started to evolve.  At first the plan was for me to return in June/July to become Coptic (Egyptian Orthodox) and get married.  But after some time it was clear that Mena's family didn't agree with our plans, and the laws regarding marriage to a foreigner were 'troublesome' so our ideas changed.  Being apart from each other proved to be difficult too, so we decided that I would return to Egypt in the April school holidays and become married in a civil union, return to Australia until September and then come back to Egypt and start a new life here with my new husband.

Oh my goodness, who can wait so long when they have decided the course of their life.  Plan C, takes effect.  No more waiting until September, when our marriage plans fell through due to paperwork and legal difficulties in April, we decided not to wait until September.  Instead I would make my move in the June/July school holidays.

That's how I ended up here in Egypt.  I met an amazing man, fell in love, decided that I couldn't live without him and moved to Egypt.  I've been here 3 months now and believe me, there has been a fair share of ups and downs along the way.  Moving to another country is difficult.  Moving to a country that is culturally the polar opposite to your own is more difficult, doing this while beginning a marriage with a man you love, but don't really know is, well, difficult.  So far it's been totally worth it.  I have cried, boy oh boy have I cried.  Anyone who knows me well will know that it's not unusual for me to get teary.  I can see my mother nodding in agreement as she reads this.  But there have been a lot of laughs too and I even look upon some of the crazy hard stuff now and smile, even laugh at our adventure so far.

I wish I had started writing this blog from the beginning because there are heaps of little stories that have been worth telling and now I have to play catch up to fill you all in.

Be ready for the next installment of my crazy new life in Egypt.