“So – are you visiting?”
We had returned to Cairo for our first trip two years after leaving.
Cairo had been our home for seven years.
 |
| photo credit: Marilyn Gardner |
It was in Cairo that we had watched three of our five children take their first steps.
It was in Cairo where our youngest two were born, three years apart.
It was our community in this city that had loved us and cared for us through pregnancies and sickness; through post-delivery chaos and family crises; and through packing up and leaving when the time came.
The apartment we lived in still had markings of our children’s measurements on the doorpost. We had seen these just a day before while with our friends.
Cairo had been home for a long time and it broke our hearts to leave.
We said goodbye to all those things we loved so deeply.
Rides in huge, wooden boats called feluccas on the Nile River; Egyptian lentils (Kosherie) with the spicy tomato sauce and crispy fried onions to top it off; friendships that had been forged through hours of talking and doing life together; a church that was one of a kind with people from all over the world.
So when the woman asked me the question I didn’t know what to say.
A lump came into my throat and I willed myself to hold back the tears.
Visit means stranger, tourist, one who goes and stays in a place for a “short time.”
The dictionary definition is clear on this.
It goes on to add “for purposes of sociability, business, politeness, curiousity…”
By contrast, the word live means “to dwell, to stay as a permanent resident.”
We were no longer permanent residents in Cairo, Egypt.
Our visas, stamped into our blue passports, no longer gave us legal resident status. Instead, they gave us only temporary permission to be in the country.
We did not have permission to dwell, to live, to work.
We only had permission to stay for a short time – to ‘visit.’
The grief that washed over me was acute and I wanted to bury myself in it.
I wanted to be able to grieve with abandon, to cry the tears I had wanted to cry since leaving two years prior.
I wanted to cry tears that would water the dusty ground that surrounded me, ground that had not seen water for a long time.
But I couldn’t.
Because indulging in the grief at that moment would have taken me away from the place that I loved, the people that I loved.
When a third culture kid suddenly finds himself or herself a stranger, a visitor in a land they once claimed the grief is acute and necessary.
And there is no way around but through.
Trying to avoid the reality is not helpful.
But this I know: More difficult than a visit would have been no visit at all, far harder than facing my current reality would have been dreaming a dream in a country far removed and never getting to experience this beloved place again.
So I held in the grief until a better time, swallowed hard, and went on my way.
Marilyn Gardner is an adult third culture kid who grew up in Pakistan and raised her own third culture kids in Cairo, Egypt before moving to the United States. She is author of the recently released book Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging available now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell Books.
thisiskatha.com 
Thanks for coming by, Robyn!
That surely must be tough sometimes to visit home as a stranger, Sarah! I hope you still enjoying seeing familiar friends and places and realize it's not that strange after all. May there always be people to make you feel at home despite the distance. Thanks for visiting!
Great to hear, Barbarah! It's so important for missionaries and TCKs to have people in their passport countries to care for them and show understanding as they go through transition. Thanks for visiting!
Absolutely, Anita! Thanks for this reminder!
I “drank” from the Nile, but at its origin in Uganda. So Cairo is still on the bucket list…:)
I haven't returned to Uganda yet, but today I write about returning to South Africa. Quite a painful but also healing journey…
Jen, I read your piece on returning to the US quite abruptly, moving between homes is always quite difficult and more impacting than we think…
Thanks for sharing this. Very interesting. I'm going to have to look around and read more of your posts.
Yes! I've found that to be so true with Cairo – home in my heart. Thanks so much for understanding this piece Sarah!
Thanks so much for reading this piece. And I love your describing this as a window. I think that's what many of us who are adult TCKs long to do – provide a window.Every individual is unique, and there are no identical circumstances, but windows help! Would love for you to check out my book if you haven't seen. The link is in the post. It's all about the TCK experience as told from my window 🙂
What a beautiful post – thank you for sharing 🙂 I felt very similar when I went “home” to Scotland. The country of my birth and first 32 years of life. The country where all my family live but now the country that I am a “visitor” in. It will always be home in my heart <3
Blessings, Sarah Travis
What a valuable blog this is. In a couple of precious churches I worked closely with supporting our missionaries and there first heard the term “third culture kids.” Thanks for this window into one aspect of their adjustments.
It's so hard to know what you'll feel – there's so much excitement and nostalgia leading up to the visit. With the particular visit I talk about here there were so many feelings associated with it that I had to disconnect from those to really enjoy our time. When we got back to my passport country – that's when so much of my thinking made it on to paper or words expressed to friends. And I so know what it's like to dream about being back in a place. Thanks so much for reading!
It absolutely should be on your wish list! There's a proverb that says “once you drink from the Nile you are destined to return” – we've found that to be more than true so just be ready to fall in love with the complexity that is Cairo. Thanks so much for reading the piece.
Yes! That's exactly right – Yet God uses place and has used place throughout the centuries so it's a real paradox. Thanks for 'getting' it!
What a beautiful glimpse into the struggles of living in other cultures. There's something about 'living' on earth that helps prepare us for 'dwelling' in heaven. Down here, every place we live is just a visit (I tell myself this to help me remember not to get too attached to all the places we've lived).
Cairo is one of the places still on my wish list. Greetings from the other side of the globe, Australia. xx
I haven't yet been able to visit my African home, though I did dream about it last night. Must have to do with what I wrote about today.
Anyways, what a beautifully written guest post! And goodness, I suspect when I visit SA again, I'll have many of the same feelings of “but this is home!” even though I'll only be visiting.