Apart from the fact that you have an Egyptian national ID and passport, there are certain things only your fellow countrymen/women would relate to. It’s like a sense of their national identity and what it means to them to be Egyptian. True citizens share with us 9 things they do that makes them unquestionably Egyptian:

-“We care for each other. People offer their help without previously knowing you. If you’re on the street with a flat tire, at least 5 cars if not more will stop to help you.”

-“A3od 3al ahwa aw afdal fel share3 l 5 el sob7 doing absolutely nothing; this would probably get us arrested anywhere else in the world. It actually happened to me when I was abroad.”

-“If you meet someone for the first time, you feel like you’ve known them your entire life. There is no awkwardness, especially that you’ll probably discover that they’re somehow related to you. Masr 2oda w sala wallahy.”

-“This isn’t a very positive note but whenever you’re lost and ask someone for directions, they would never say they don’t know. The first reaction is always ‘howa 2alak fein?'”

-“No one is ever punctual. EVER. If you’ve agreed with someone to meet at 7 pm, you know they will end up showing up at 9 pm. It’s a given.”

-“If anyone cussed the deteriorating economic conditions, you’d find someone automatically bringing up 3azamet el fara3na.”

-“3arabeyet el fool abl l shoghl. You never worry about not finding 3arabeyet el fool, because you will magically find one without even looking for it.”

-“Asking questions which state the obvious zay ‘enta nayem’, ‘enta geit’, ‘enty 7amel’ and the list goes on. There was actually a media campaign about this phenomenon; it hit home.”

-“Effehat l aflam. It’s a language that comes along with your mother tongue, also the translation of expressions like ‘make it wet and drink its water’. You find yourself translating things that actually don’t make sense in any other language.”

So what do you do that makes you pure Egyptian?