East meets West: An Egyptian’s struggles with student housing in Reno
Hadi Eltahlawi looks into the differences between his residence in Reno and his native Egypt.
The main reason I ended up living in the Green Leaf Republic was because they didn’t require a developed credit score, due to me being a foreigner, which is something I only knew about when I got here to Reno.
My family has two homes in Egypt, one in a city called Heliopolis and another in New Cairo.
Heliopolis is way different than Reno. To make sense of what that means, we can visit the history of the two cities and it is a main distinction between the East and the West.
Heliopolis is Greek for “Sun city”, it was the capital of the 15th or Heliopolite Nome of lower Egypt and a major religious center. However, its history dates back to 1539–1075 BC. It was known in ancient Egypt for having the great Temple to worship Re, the Sun God.
Reno is most famous for being the “Biggest Little City in the world” which didn’t make any sense to me when I first got here. However, during a chat with an Uber driver, I came to know that Reno is called that because it has all the facilities of a big city, however, it is still geographically small. And I don’t think the whole history of the United States would date back to hundreds of years ago. So, I guess Heliopolis wins here.
When I first entered the hallways of the building I would live in for a whole year in Reno, I was stunned by how lame and gloomy the colors looked and it didn’t reflect the outside of the building.
I can’t help but make a comparison between the Republic, with the relatively pleasing building’s outer design and the inner dead halls to America itself. I feel that the United States, especially to us Arabs, is glamorous just when we see it on the news; who wouldn’t want to visit Times Square? But when I got here, I felt confusion, inner conflicts and issues that are relatively new to me.
The people at the Republic are so sweet in the kind of interaction that doesn’t require them to speak more than one sentence, but they are not very open to even have a conversation.
I have tried to initiate conversations with multiple people I meet in the elevator or on the stairs but they always seem so tense and reserved and that’s why I haven’t exchanged a word with even my roommate for like a month.
In my street in Heliopolis, if any passerby would see me just sitting alone and looking sad, they would immediately just greet me and simply comment, “This life is not worth anything to be sad, brother, look at all the blessings we have.”
They would then have the most random conversation just to distract me. Well again, this is not so common nowadays but it still happens and I have met many people who would offer to help me without any prior knowledge.
At the Republic, one thing I truly felt in the air even apart from the smell of weed on the first floor, is the sense of unfamiliarity which entailed fear.
To elaborate on this, I don’t understand when a drunk student stops me to ask if they need to drink water at the moment. Or the sounds of girls screaming next door at 2 a.m. because they found a champagne opener. Or the gloomy faces of all the people with their headphones plugged in their ears and not willing to even smile in your face when they pass you by.
This all makes me feel unsafe because I just can’t comprehend it. In my street, I know my neighbor who lives three buildings down. I am used to being greeted by all the people in my street in the morning with a huge smile on their faces. I am used to being asked by my old neighbor if I am hungry or need anything.
I can understand that many people can have some bad days, but people in my street will try their best to not project their problems upon their neighbors because they know when it gets serious, they would definitely run to them for help.
Finally, I feel that modernity or whatever the kind of society the Republic has is highly unhealthy, at least to me. And it is absurd as we Arabs are always lectured on how to behave in a civil, humane manner when we are in the West. Well my answer is that we in Egypt did a whole civilization where people loved and cared for each other, long before it was cool.
