Anum Khan

Their Fulbright story

Anum Khan is a Research Study Assistant at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. As a 2012–2013 U.S. Fulbright Student affiliated with the American University in Cairo, she taught English and Social Studies to schoolchildren and threw herself into the daily life of the city.

What she remembers most is not a single milestone but a texture of everyday moments — the people she met, the meals she shared, and the markets full of fresh juice and molokheya that, she notes wryly, are far harder to find in New York than in Cairo. Her grant became, above all, an education in belonging.

She spent Ramadan with Egyptian friends, staying up through the early-morning hours over sahour and fatour — talking, playing cards, praying, and preparing the simple, beloved trio of bayd, foul wa zibadi (eggs, fava beans, and yogurt). Those nights, she says, were among the most memorable of her life.

Years later, Khan still takes every chance to converse with Egyptians — to talk politics, to ask what they miss most about home, to trade Mohamed Mounir songs. The lyric she keeps returning to is "Tarakt 2lby fe Masr" — I left my heart in Egypt. "There will never be a place like Egypt," she says.

I am grateful for the people I met, the memories I shared, and all the food and fresh juice I consumed. There will never be a place like Egypt — I left my heart in Cairo.