People thought we were strange in Damascus.
Two American girls, one white, one black, traveling alone and speaking Egyptian Arabic. People stared quite openly, taking us for obvious tourists from what had to be a mystery country. If we so much as stopped to ask for directions, the response was "Where are you from?" The answer - "America" - was met with dissatisfaction. "No, originally," people would add. "Where are you really from?"
My Polish mother, who speaks English with a noticeable accent, laughed as I recounted my tale upon returning from Cairo to my home in Texas. "Now you see how I feel in this country! " she said. "I can't even buy a loaf of bread without telling people my whole life story."
It is this feeling of "foreignness" that has made nearly all of us uncomfortable at one time or another. It is the immigrant's curse, the tourist's annoyance and the political activist's bane. We all want to be accepted, but often we are thwarted by those unspoken requirements for "insider" membership.
Each society seems to establish a certain standard of cultural deviation before people just have to ask. When I decided that I wanted to study and spend significant amounts of time in the Arab world, my parents had a hard time understanding why, after all their years of struggle to help me assimilate into American society, I would want to take on the burden of starting over in a place where I'm not like anyone else.
My answer was really rather simple: on some level, I've always felt "foreign." It's not entirely because of my Polish background, though I'm sure that did have something to do with it. Rather, it's because I'm a pretty strange person. A 10-year-old child who dresses up as Mozart for fun and prances about listening to his music for hours each day does not find a cultural "niche" in which to relax - in any country. A 17-year-old white girl who blasts Arabic music as she speeds through suburban residential areas in a used Volvo does not encounter subcultures of people who say, "Me too!" And a 21-year-old Westerner who prefers speaking Arabic over English and enjoys trancing out in fields, restaurants and centers of worship for various religions does not return to a home where most people identify with that kind of behavior.
This isn't to say that America doesn't hold a special place in my heart. My grasp of the English language keeps me in constant dialogue with my country, where my opportunities and dreams were born. Additionally, my American education and - as I have recently discovered - my sense of humor, link me inextricably with our sublimely inimitable and untranslatable cultural phenomena: "The Daily Show," "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and the New York Times, to name a few. Further, I possess endless debts of gratitude to the progressive communities in America who embrace diversity and cultural fusion. They offer me spaces where I can be happy knowing that my inexplicable fascinations are accepted.
Nevertheless, even among these tolerant and moral people, I often feel like a guest in a five-star hotel. I can think and sleep all day in there, and the view is beautiful, but what I am really looking for in that vast building is a group of people to jump with me from the balcony.
During my year in Egypt, I have realized that it is the job of our generation to convey the important message that it's okay to be foreign. Our message joins the struggle and the celebration of people around the world who, like me, must usually speak about themselves in an explanatory tone. As a planet, we are slowly becoming aware that difference, variety and displacement will become more, not less, common over the coming centuries.
Oh man, Natalie Smolenski '07 is looking forward to being back at Brown.
