Adjusting Myself

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Moving to any new country as an expat is a lot like the Serenity Prayer – you have to accept the craziness that is inherent in your new home. Try to participate in the local culture, and maybe help change things for the better. But you also have to have the wisdom to recognize when the craziness is so ingrained in the culture that no amount of hours spent volunteering for the best cause or railing at the gods will fix anything.

Egypt is the third foreign country I have lived in for a significant period of time. (The US doesn’t count because it’s basically just a big southern Canadian province.) Prior to arriving in any new country, Hubby and I always purchase books on the local culture, language, and touristy hotspots. We spend hours online researching neighborhoods, local restaurants, and expat haunts in preparation for the everydayness that is sure to confront us once we get past the “ohhhing and awwwing stage.”

When Bluefish asked how I was adjusting to life in Egypt I realized that “adjusting” was more than figuring out how Cairo worked -- it was about figuring out how this expat thing works. By virtue of the fact that Hubby’s job keeps us on the move, I have been (more or less) able to adjust to life on two different continents and three very different societies. Thus, adjusting is more than figuring out who has the best take away pizza, it is learning how to say “please and thank you” in the local language, it is also about learning how to cope with seemingly simple tasks in a place where making dinner requires a visit to more than five different shops.

I like to think that I have learned to adjust myself to my surroundings fairly quickly and efficiently. I know that the “ohhing and awwwing” phase is followed very quickly by the “get me the hell out of here” stage. Luckily, eventually the adjustment phase kicks in and you realize that you’re stuck in that place for however long your spouse’s job/contract lasts and that it is up to you to make the best of it. These stages are cyclical and are usually revisited multiple times per move.

Adjusting to Egypt has meant getting used to occasional blasts of verbal abuse rained down on me by local men, learning the language so I can abuse them in return, and eventually learning to block it all out. After only three months, I barely notice the catcalls that so aggravated me when we first arrived.

I haven’t been here long enough to make a difference to anyone other than my dry cleaner who is currently erecting a statue to me and my ironing phobia. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not trying: I’ve joined all my usual groups and associations. I’m trying to “get out there,” meet people, and find causes that are meaningful to me.

We are now several months into our new Egyptian lives and are quite content with many aspects of life here. Thanks to some dogged determination and a lot of nesting, we survived our initial “I hate it here” moments. And I have learned to fine-tune my actions and reactions to suit Egypt’s many changing faces. So long as we call Cairo “home,” I will learn to adapt to Her moods and hope that she will learn to eventually accept me.