Welcome in Alaska

One of the first impressions I had of Egypt as I stepped from the airport out into Cairo wasn't the oppressive summer heat that's only just warming up in early June. What I first noticed was that the atmosphere around me was so friendly. Less than two weeks after I landed I had already done a walking tour of my home neighborhood - the island of Zamalek in the middle of the Nile - gone to the Egyptian museum, visited the Citadel and al-Azhar mosque, and gone shopping through Khan al-Khalili, a major tourist market built in 1382 and reconstructed in the 16th century that is a maze of passageways several blocks long that weave in between stores selling various goodies.

Everywhere I went, I was greeted with the same notion: while the political tension ebbs and flows between the East and West on a large scale, on an individual level Egyptians were thrilled to meet me and talk to me. "When you go home, tell your friends that we like Americans. We don't like your government, but the people we love. Make sure you tell everyone."

There are always, of course, the ever-present "shabaab" or "youths" (which in Egypt includes every guy between the ages of twelve and thirty) who shout at the American girls walking down the street "I love you! You are so beautiful! Welcome to Egypt!" And at the Khan where there are more foreigners than Egyptians, all the shopkeepers shout (sometimes annoyingly) for your attention to come and look at their wares. But when I really had an opportunity to talk with someone - even if it was just with a storekeeper - I always felt truly welcome.

In Egypt, bargaining is customary and the process can take a while, so a store owner will typically pull out a chair and offer you a variety of beverages from water to Coke or Sprite to tea. After the transaction has been settled on, you typically stay and chat and it was then that I really felt I was getting an insight into their culture and my temporary place in it. The range of appropriate and polite questions covers a lot more ground from "What's your religion?" to "Are you married?" and, fortunately for me, that works both ways. To really sit and talk with someone about their families and children opens doors you'd never think to find at someplace like MACY'S.

So why "Welcome in Alaska" and not "Welcome in Egypt"? To be honest, I don't know. The "in" part is a direct translation of Arabic where you don't ever welcome anyone TO a place but rather IN a place. The Alaska part continues to baffle me to this day. About five times over the course of my year in Egypt I heard people shout that to me and I regret that I never stopped to ask them why. No other Egyptian seemed to understand either. But I'm not the only one that heard it.

Still, the change in venue name does nothing to make me feel less welcome and less at home in my new adoptive country.