Personal Narrative: My Egyptian Culture

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Imagine being a shy eight year old girl at a new school desperately wanting to fit in. You go to lunch and sit at the table with the “popular girls” and eagerly pull out the leftovers from last night’s dinner. You start to eat your food when you notice that everyone is staring at the green soup you are enjoying. The girl next to you anxiously asks, “What are you eating?”, so you explain to the group of girls that you are eating Molokhiya, a traditional Egyptian soup made from bush okra leaves. All the girls start to make disgusted faces, and look at you as if you are crazy for eating LEAVES! You slowly stop eating your Molokhiya because you realize it is not what all the other girls at school are eating, and you desperately try to avoid the topic about food. But all the girls keep asking you, “Why would you eat leaves?” and the only answer you can come up with is that Molokhiya is a dish that you grew up eating because it is part your Egyptian culture. Well, that shy eight year old girl was me, and my Egyptian culture has shaped me into the person I am today. I grew up in a traditional Egyptian household, which meant that I was supposed to get straight A’s, become a doctor or dentist, and attend church on Sundays. I did not realize that I had a different culture than most of my friends until I was eight years old. Then I started to notice …show more content…

I was dreading this trip because I was not excited to be in 100 degree weather and be surrounded by people speaking only in Arabic. However, during my time there, I saw how living in Egypt shaped my parents values and influenced their lives. Even though they lived in America, they stayed true to their Egyptian heritage by valuing family, education, and their faith before anything else. It was evident that the customs, food, and language in Egypt greatly varied from other cultures and I began to learn how to appreciate these

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