I was 18 when I legally applied to change my name in court, in the Netherlands. I was born ‘Somayah’ daughter of a Dutch mother and an Egyptian father. They divorced when I was very young. I don’t remember much from the time they were together, apart from two fights that occurred in the Netherlands, and that one time I got stuck in an elevator in Alexandria because I couldn’t reach the buttons. I must have suppressed everything else. I do, however, have some vivid memories of going to Egypt when I was five or six years old. My mother would play Dutch music at my grandmother’s house in Ismailia, and my grandmother always made too much food, and bred pigeons on her own balcony. I recall her giving me some money to buy yogurt or rice pudding, which I loved, from a street vendor. We’d also visit my dreadful aunt who made me sit on her lap and slapped my cheeks. I remember singing songs with my cousins, and standing on the hood of a stranger’s car, speaking Arabic while explaining Dutch games to kids in the neighborhood. I…
