If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

by Noor Naga

I’m caught between my desire to understand and my desire to appear as though I already understand.

People look me up and down, they talk to me in Arabic and I feel I’ve won something. When I start asking questions, they switch immediately to English, as though correcting themselves, putting us both in our places. Cairo is not what I expected, but the shock is one of scale rather than content. I expected traffic and poverty and pollution, but not like this. It’s a city dialed up to its extreme.

It’s sensory overload with nowhere to hide. It’s consequence.