A new life as an immigrant

Today is the 13th of July which marks Day 281 of the annihilation and genocide in Gaza. The Israeli army attacked al-Mawasi in Khan Younis today, carrying out another new horrifying massacre. I can’t start this post without mentioning it.

I’ve decided to start writing again because so many of my friends asked me for updates, but from now on it’s different as I’m writing as an immigrant. I also feel I have a duty to speak about the concept of home because I’ve mentioned it in my diary so many times before and for me, home is still the same - it’s the place I want to go back to, the place where I feel comfortable, the place where I belong. Although I feel safe and welcome here in Egypt, I also feel that I belong there, because I’ve spent most of my life there and as I was forced to leave it, it feels bitter. Every moment of my life I feel like I want to go back there. 

If I had left because I wanted to, that would have been a very different story, but since we were forced to leave we feel an intense homesickness. Everyone around me feels the same and they constantly say, “We want to go back, we want to know what’s happening to our homes, we want to know what our streets look like now.” For sure our homes and the streets are not there anymore but we still think about them all the time. I’m now doing the same thing my grandmother did - I still have the keys for my home even though I’m sure they have no use anymore. I still feel I have the duty to carry it wherever I go. I also carry the keys of other places I dream of returning to one day, like a previous apartment we used to live in, which doors are stolen now, if not got destroyed. 

I arrived in Egypt a few days before Ramadan started. It was such a long journey but as soon as I arrived I had a number of priorities, the first being that I wanted to live in a place I actually felt at home in. When we first arrived we were living in an apartment which was far away from the core life of Cairo. Although I was really thankful to be safe, my father and I decided that since we’re here anyway we want to feel the spirit of the place. I wanted to be closer to the center. I spent many days during the month of Ramadan trying to find a place to move to and finally just before the end of the month we found the right one. It was on the other side of Cairo, it was beautiful and so quiet. It matches my lifestyle since I’m a morning person and it is a safe and quiet place to walk in the mornings. Gaza is a city that wakes up early, but even there I’d often wake up before most people for my morning walks.

When we first arrived here it was like I was in a state of shock. It took me a while to get back to my usual routine of going to sleep early and waking up early as well. 

So during Ramadan if I wasn’t looking for a place for my father and I, I was spending my time going to a place called Abbasiyeh which is the administration office for passports. The experience I had there was a culture shock for me. It took ages to get anything done. I went so many times as I had to move the information from my old passport to my new passport. I would end up spending entire days there in different offices trying to figure out who could assist me. It was so chaotic. They often changed the locations of the different offices. It was exhausting as I had to go so many times, to different offices, to different floors and there was no designated person giving you directions about which floor to go to and there were thousands of people standing there of all nationalities waiting in queues. I only managed to finish everything once Ramadan was over. It’s important to me to be legal and follow the law wherever I am. But then I was only given a residency permit for 8 days from the 1st of May. Nobody could tell me the process I had to go through to renew it and so I decided to not go through this whole process all over again. I would rather just accept whatever fees we have to pay than spend my days and nights going to hundreds of offices where no one can give me an answer about what I’m supposed to do.

Remember, Ramadan was in March/ April so imagine how long that process took. 

I guess it was naive of me to think that due to my career back in Gaza everything would be stored on a system. There was nothing in the system in Abbasiyeh or in the Palestinian embassy. They just type up the necessary letters and official papers and give them to you. I thought everything would be done electronically but it wasn’t, and I needed to go several times to actually get my papers given to me. In this regard I have to mention that there is a lot of cooperation from some of the staff of the embassy and some of the staff in Abbasiyeh but that’s on a personal level - people are being really nice to you but they aren’t so professional because sometimes you have to go from one office to another or sit in someone’s office waiting for ages. You’re just lucky that they’re nice to you but the whole setup is not very professional.

Most of the travels I have done before were related to my work so I never had this problem of needing to go for long distances but in Egypt it was different - I needed to travel for long distances to do my official papers and work which is for me was so chaotic. But then I remember that I’m not here for fun, I’m here to live - which is difficult - it’s a new position where I’m an immigrant and trying to live my life in a new place.

When I first arrived here I used to have a lot of conversations with taxi drivers and I was proud to see the amount of local support from Egyptians for Palestinians. I always have a problem with politics and politicians, I never believe any of them and I am constantly drawing up scenarios  in my head about how the genocide in Gaza is going to end - not when but how. But to see the support of the people here at this level makes me very enthusiastic. Of course there are always exceptions but the majority of the Egyptians I’ve met have been very nice with us.

Some of my friends, especially those living in Jordan and the West Bank tried to introduce me to their friends which is nice, but then everyone has their own lives in this big place and I have to manage my own as well. People here are really nice and kind but one of the major differences that we have to the Egyptians here is how they perceive time - for them there is no problem with being late for an appointment and not telling you they’re coming late. Staying up late was also very problematic for me - it took me a lot of effort to go back to my schedule as generally people here are very nocturnal. For me that was a big difference. I’m also lucky to have my family with me. At the beginning my sister came from Turkey, my brother came from Sweden. I still have more family coming. They had to visit and check on us. To be honest at the beginning I was kind of busy so my thoughts were not really organized and I wasn’t able to host them properly - I kept thinking about the war and the genocide. It was like they were coming to fix our broken lives and what we actually needed was just the opposite - well maybe that’s something my father needed but for me personally I needed to have my own space. I didn’t want to see anyone I know, I needed to have some time alone to be able to understand what we had been through and where we are - I did not get that chance so it wasn’t really fun. They came with all that they could give us and provide to us and they did it with love but still I didn’t feel anyone in my life at that point as I really needed to spend some time alone.

I also had to do some medical treatment here in Egypt since I suffered from malnutrition - I was not going through starvation by any means like what people in Gaza are going through now but I still had malnutrition which affected me a lot. I’m still going through that medical treatment and hopefully my health will get back to normal. The same happened to my father and to my cats. So I had to ensure that they are in good condition. At one point they were very sick because there was a garden and they wanted to spend time outside, but then I realised they were getting sick from spending time there  as they were exposed to other stray cats and so I had to stop them from going outside.

I’m also starting to practice the boycott and I am not buying products from companies supporting Israel: before in Gaza we didn’t have so many options so we just had to make do with whatever we had but I’m slowly becoming someone who is practicing the boycott more, since there are so many options here. 

There are so many Palestinians in the area where I live - there are a couple of places in Cairo which are full of Palestinians - when I enter my street I say hi to so many people I know. 

I’m so grateful and I’m so happy that I feel safe and secure here but still during the night time I imagine - especially as I read the news before I sleep - I just imagine myself because I know how it looks and feels being there - I just keep imagining myself in an attack or a bomb or strike coming to the place that I am. I find myself hiding my body, putting my head between my arms, or hiding myself under my blanket - it’s still there and obviously it’s going to remain there with me for a while.

My  father, who is 80, spends days in his bedroom lying on bed and watching the news. Before we came here, he always had future plans because he is a planner, but now, he has no plans and no tomorrow to wait for. We had to argue many times about how important it is for him psychologically and physically to go out but he does not seem to listen.

I follow up on the news from a distance and now I know what’s going on more because when I was living through the genocide I had no relation whatsoever with the news so everything I wrote was from what people were saying. But here  I watch and listen to the news more often. We can see more of what’s going on and how terrible it is - it really is the worst thing that anyone can go through. Just imagining myself there makes me panic. In spite of everything my feelings are still frozen. I feel panic and trauma, especially when I see an airplane - I feel we are going to be attacked and killed. But then even though I get those feelings I also feel frozen and I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to feel ‘normal’ again.