Nadeen & Jasna by Oksana Ivanenko
Parallel Story #14
Nadeen & Jasna
Egypt & Slovenia
This parallel story was put forward by APIS Institute (Slovenia) for Movement
Nadeen is a young Egyptian woman who came to Slovenia for medical treatment. The initial move was very difficult for her as she did not know the language and was afraid to communicate with people. Except for her father, who went with her, she knew no one and felt lonely. Over time, she relaxed and began to educate herself. Her experience of migration has made her more independent and responsible, and although she remains Egyptian in culture and religion, she is grateful to Slovenia for introducing her to the world. Jasna is a Slovenian who lived in Cairo, Egypt, between 2007 and 2009. She went there after graduation to study Arabic. In the beginning, she struggled with the city, the language and cultural customs, however, later when she met her future husband, her life in Egypt became easier and less lonely. When she realized that they were expecting a baby, they decided to move to Slovenia…
Nadeen’s Story
Nadeen is a young Egyptian woman who spent her early childhood and primary school in Saudi Arabia, where her father was working. For secondary school, they went back to Egypt where she lived for six years. She has very fond memories of her childhood.
Nadeen came to Slovenia almost two years ago, when she was 20 years old and her original reason for coming was medical treatment. She joined her father who has a business here and now she will probably stay for good. When she first arrived here, she was very scared, lonely, and concerned. She was afraid to speak with people because she was afraid they would misunderstand her because her English was not that good. She relied on her father a lot. Whatever she wanted, she asked him.
Though people always seemed friendly and she didn't encounter direct racism, sometimes when she walks on the street, she feels some are staring at her and it is an unpleasant feeling. She knows that people are looking at her scarf and it is not a friendly look. Fortunately, she never experienced a direct attack or insulting comments.
Over some time she relaxed and started talking to people, even though they may not have always understood her quite well. But to overcome her fear, she would put a smile on her face, and start to speak, and this made her feel much more comfortable.
In the beginning, she missed her mother and sisters very much. In addition, she had many responsibilities: she had to take care of the household, go to the hospital for therapy, and get an education. She felt like she was alone in everything. Meanwhile, her father worked in his shop, and she would be there to meet with Slovenians. They used to talk and have some intercultural exchange, but she didn't become friends with any of them. Her best friends here are Safra and Marwa. They are from Iraq and both of them are very important to her.
Her worldview has changes a lot since she came to Slovenia. When she moved from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, she didn't need to learn a new language, it was still her mother tongue. After arriving in Slovenia, she started to have the ambition to study more, to learn more, and also to learn more languages. The whole experience made her a more responsible person because when you live abroad, she says, there come extra challenges and extra responsibilities.
Of course, she is surrounded by Slovenian influence, but at the same time, her identity hasn’t changed that much. She still has her Egyptian identity and culture, and she contributes to it too. Now, in Ramadan, she is doing all this Ramadan decoration. So, there is influence, but her religion and culture are staying with her.
In Slovenia, she feels that people should be more connected and united, family ties are not as strong, family members do not take care of each other as much as they should. On the other hand, Egyptians and all Arabs are very temperamental and could learn composure from Slovenes regardless of the situation. Otherwise, her experience with Slovenes has been very good, they are very kind and empathetic. Also, in the hospital they were always really supportive and compassionate. However, she noticed that Slovenes are very hardworking and serious. They go home after work and there is no one anywhere after sunset. This is so very different from Egypt, where people are joking all the time despite the difficult political situation. In Egypt, she appreciates the people a lot, because they are alive. Though the situation in Egypt is bad, people are more connected to each other, they are really enjoying life. Taking leisure time and action.
For Nadeen, home is where people are. As one Egyptian proverb says: »A place without people it should not be entered.« For her, places without people are without spirit. This doesn't mean only family, but also friends. Sometimes your girlfriend can be your shelter and you love her and trust her and feel good with her in a way that she becomes like your home.
She hopes that in five years things will be very different for her. She will speak Slovene fluently, she plans to have a family and her own business and she would like to become a film director. But at the moment, she is mostly looking forward to the fact that the rest of her family will soon join her in Slovenia. This will help her to enjoy the country and really feel like at home.
Jasna’s Story
Jasna was born and raised in Slovenia, in the countryside, in close connection with nature. She has always loved reading, so the decision to study comparative literature came naturally. During her studies, she also attended an Arabic course and decided to upgrade her language skills after graduation. In 2007 she traveled to Egypt, Cairo.
Cairo is a metropolis and even if you don’t come from a small European country, it offers a huge number of challenges that all newcomers have to face. Crossing the streets, handling the traffic, finding a flat, and learning who to trust and to what extent, were the issues of her first days there. In school, she had a private teacher at the beginning. Classes were taking place every day and were very intensive. She was learning classical Arabic, but on the streets of Cairo people spoke local Egyptian Arabic, so she couldn't really practice the language the way she thought she would.
At the beginning, it was also hard because she could count just on herself. Eventually, she met some other foreigners who traveled around or learned the language just like her and they exchanged their experiences with her and also gave her some tips and advice. She found some friends, but soon she learned that friendships abroad are not stable, especially with other foreigners, because they come and go, each of them has different timing, different amount of time to stay. Despite all this, she built some lifelong friendships that she appreciates to this day.
After a while she got some Egyptian friends too. They used to spend time together, but they also had their own life in their own social circles which she couldn't really enter, sometimes because of the language barrier.
Jasna was planning to stay in Egypt for six months. She had a return plane ticket and this was supposed to be the plan. But one month before she should have travelled back home, she met a man from Comoros and soon after they became a couple. Since she was with him, her stay in Egypt passed into a second phase, which also included deeper integration into Egyptian society. At the same time, she entered the Comorian community, another cultural environment. Although she lived in Cairo for two and a half years, she always felt only a visitor, a temporary resident of a country that would never really accept her among them. In a predominantly male world, she learned to stand up for herself and protect herself when needed. She only became close to Egyptian women when she started working for an advertising agency, where she also made new friends.
Her worldview and people skills expanded greatly with her stay in Egypt. She didn't try to know the whole magnificent Egyptian history, as much as she tried to understand contemporary Egyptian society and her own little position of observer among them.
As a babysitter in a Polish diplomatic family, she also found herself in a role that reminded her of her female compatriots leaving their homes in the early 20th century to bring extra income to the families. They worked as maids and nannies in wealthier families in Cairo and Alexandria when both cities were significantly more cosmopolitan than they are today. They are called Alexandrines. The Alexandrian women did not enter the world voluntarily like Jasna. They separated from their husbands and young children with a broken heart. Upon their return, however, they were often accepted as foreigners. Jasna sometimes thought about herself as a modern Alexandrian woman, who chose to be in Cairo and was happy to be a nanny to a lovely Polish girl. She was a woman with much more freedom than her compatriots from the beginning of the last century. At the same time, she was aware that probably some of her struggles were still the same as theirs.
After two and a half years, Jasna and her Comorian partner decided to return to Slovenia. They were expecting a baby and both of them were aware that in the situation they were going through in Cairo, they couldn't continue staying in Egypt. After all, neither of them had a reliable income or a permanent job, and they were also aware that, as foreigners, they did not have a proper social network that would make everything at least a little easier for them.
After two and a half years, returning home for Jasna meant another dimension of migration, which taught her the importance of social networks and family ties. Early childhood acquaintances helped her start a new life in her hometown. With a distance to the whole experience, she began to appreciate all the differences between Slovenia and Egypt, which enriched her and broadened her horizons.
Jasna has not visited Egypt since, but she would like to go there one day again, to visit the city and the country with her children, to show them where their parents met.
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