Searching for roots

Many of those whose parents emigrated in the 1950s and '60s are making their way back home -- only to find themselves in limbo. Ashraf Omar discovers the difficulties facing cross-cultural Egyptians
Dalia Wissa remembers when she first returned to Egypt to seek her fortune. The 24-year-old had left with her family while still an infant, spending eight years in Dubai and the remainder in southern California.
"I was Egyptian by name, but I was never really Egyptian," said Wissa, who had visited Egypt with her family a handful of times over the years. "I wanted to experience Egypt first hand."
And so, recently graduated from college and looking for a year of international work experience before post-graduate school, Wissa came back "home" in December 1999. She was young, ambitious and primed to experience life in the motherland.
She promptly fell apart.
"It was absolute hell," she said. "A total identity crisis. I freaked out... By April I was in a shambles."
Intermittent summertime family visits to Egypt and a solid command of Arabic had done nothing to prepare her for the realities of life in Cairo. She was homesick, afraid to ride in taxis alone and generally miserable.
"I didn't think I could have culture shock in Egypt." Wissa said. "The sheltering that happens when you come as a visitor isn't there anymore. There's a lot you don't see. Your family shelters you from all the difficulties."
Now, 18 months later, Wissa, who works for the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, seems to have adjusted.
"I feel that I fit in now," she said, "I still have my days when I wake up and say 'My God, I'm an alien!' But they're far between."
Wissa's story is hardly unique. The past 10 years have seen a modest reversal of the oft-cited Egyptian brain-drain. A new crop of young first-generation Egyptians, many of them the children of the original brain-drain emigrants from the late '60s, have decided to see what Egypt has to offer them -- personally and professionally. Their personal circumstances, the time they have spent in Egypt and their Arabic fluency often vary widely. But one thing is universal: all of them go through an often rough adjustment period that can leave them questioning just how Egyptian they ever can be and whether they made the right decision to return.
"You try to take the best of both worlds, but at the end of the day you're neither here nor there," says Hassan Abdou, who spent 13 years in Pennsylvania, attended high school at Cairo American College, then returned to Egypt three years ago after completing his master's degree and working in the US and Europe. "You may be an Egyptian biologically and from a passport perspective, but if you've spent your formative years in America, you are American."
That philosophical question -- just what constitutes an Egyptian -- imposes itself every day on many returnees. The reactions of many Egyptians around them often serve as an additional reminder of their insider-outsider status.
"I became much happier here when I simply stopped trying to fit in," says Layla Tahoun, manager of content development at the Web site Noor.net. Tahoun is the founder of the Roots club (roots@noor.net) for young first-generation or mixed-blood Arabs. She started the group a couple of years ago by placing an ad in Egypt Today magazine, where she worked at the time.
Tahoun, who is half-British, originally started the club with the intention of gathering fellow Egyptians of mixed parentage like herself. The response to the ad was immediate -- not just from children of mixed marriages but also from full-blooded Egyptians who had been raised or spent much time overseas.
"It was something I didn't consider," Tahoun said. "I thought you would only get that cultural struggle if you had parents from different cultures."
The group now gathers every few weeks at members' homes. Tahoun says the common cross-cultural ground often creates a quick bond between fellow Egyptians from abroad. "It's an instant connection between people," she said. "In the end, you end up spending time with people like yourself."
Socially, the returnees often find their comfort zones along the semi-elite fringes of Egyptian society -- either with the wealthy and cosmopolitan Egyptian crowd or in one of the myriad foreigner subcultures.
One common thread is the often problematic relationship between returnees and "real Egyptians" (defined, for the purposes of this article, as citizens from any social class who have never spent time outside the country). At one recent Roots club gathering, the question went around the room: had anyone managed to form a meaningful and comfortable relationship with a real Egyptian? The answer was a nearly unanimous no.
The problem seems to be one of expectations. Returnees complain that "real Egyptians" tend to regard them as "exotic pets" or, worse, "sell-outs." Many complain of what they consider blatant double standards between the way they are regarded and the way a true foreign visitor is dealt with.
"People expect so much of you if you're an Arab-American," Wissa said. "They expect you to know everything, but then they cater to foreigners." And foreigners, many cross-cultural Egyptians feel, are expected to be clueless. Any foreigner who can put a rudimentary sentence together in Arabic will receive effusive praise for his fluency and dedication to learning the language. But the slightest mispronunciation or tangled pronoun from a first-generation Egyptian can often be an invitation to open mockery. "I've almost stopped speaking Arabic because of the reactions I get," said one returnee. "The hardest part is the two different 'h' sounds in the Arabic alphabet. I simply can't hear the difference, but everybody else can, and if you say it wrong, it's really funny to people."
Likewise, foreigners are expected to have no knowledge of local customs and social mores, while first-generation Egyptians get no such slack. Wissa recalls horrifying her family shortly after her arrival by suggesting sending flowers to the family of a recently deceased friend instead of visiting the family and sipping black coffee with them as they mourn -- the normal custom. "The reaction was incredible," she said. "It was like I'd committed some sort of crime."
Wissa is one of the rare cases of returning Egyptians who has actually managed to make real Egyptian friends. "That has definitely changed my outlook on this place," she said.
Still the dynamics of Egyptian friendship and the interactions of the shilla, or clique, are still a bit of a mystery.
"It's like you're dating these five people," Wissa said. "You go everywhere together. You talk every day. It's insane."
Tahoun says forming friendships with regular Egyptians "is not impossible, but hard." She described Egyptian female friendship dynamics as a strange combination of extremely tight and extremely unstable. "It's instant friendship, and it's very superficial... It's very easy to meet people in Egypt. You can be here for a month and suddenly you have a circle of friends," she said. "It's perfect if you just want to socialise. But once you hit a snag or disagree on something, it's instant disintegration."
And if forging lasting friendships with non-cross-cultural Egyptians is a challenge, the prospect of love and romance is even more daunting for these returnees.
"I think Egyptian men want a certain amount of girlishness and silliness in a woman," said one female returnee, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And the women -- even the ones who know better -- play the game, because that's what the men want. To be secure in yourself and your opinions is somehow regarded as being not feminine."
Like friendships, romantic relationships also face difficulties centred around each side's expectation of the other. "The men here have so many preconceptions once they know you're half-half," Tahoun said.
Despite the hassles, the Nile waters still hold a powerful attraction for Egypt's far-flung sons and daughters. Many come, and stay, simply because being a big fish in a small pond is too tempting. Returnees, especially those with a foreign education and decent Arabic, are hot commodities on the job market, with comparatively high salaries and the kind of responsibilities they would never be offered overseas.
"I can probably make more money in London, but only by working as somebody's secretary," said one returnee.
The professional advantage for returnees is very real, Abdou agrees, but it can often be a mixed blessing. He says he feels the special status that many returnees enjoy can also lead to laziness and apathy. The primary challenge, he feels, is a daily struggle "not to lose your edge."
Youssef Hammad, who was raised in Switzerland, attended the American University in Cairo and returned three years ago to serve as marketing director for El-Gouna Beverages, tells a similar tale. "People are satisfied with less here. They don't push themselves enough," he remarks. "I've found myself starting to compromise on the quality of my work."
Abdou's return was motivated partly by personal reasons. He had met his future wife, the sister of a friend, in New York and came here to be with her. But his decision to come also had a professional angle. He was fresh out of Harvard Business School and was eager to tap into the Egyptian economic resurgence. He remembers the optimism of the time four years ago when Egypt was one of the developing world's brightest economic stars. Abdou, now a vice-president with EFG-Hermes affiliate Horus Private Equity Fund, said the perception then was that anyone who didn't come soon would risk missing the boat. "The fear was that if you didn't come early, instead of being the guy who steers the process, you'd be working for the guy who was brave enough to come early," he recalls.
Now, with the Egyptian economy in a prolonged slump, Abdou is warning potential returnees about taking a similar step unless it's for a one-in-a-million opportunity. "Other than family, I can't think of a reason why coming back would be a good idea," he says.
Just as economic promise helped lure many of these overseas Egyptians back, the current malaise may be reversing the trend -- sending returnees away from Egypt in search of greener pastures.
Hammad is already gone. He had grown frustrated and was already thinking of leaving when his company's purchase by rival Al-Ahram Beverages helped finalise the decision. He recently accepted a job with a telecommunications company in London.
"I need a new challenge," he said before leaving. "The economy isn't going anywhere for another three years. So, in the meantime, I might as well go learn something new."
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