Don't Call Me A Khawaga!

Becoming a mother at 40 turned me into a full-time age investigator. In this episode: school pickup insecurity, Golden Girls trauma, reverse aging propaganda, reading glasses denial and the completely normal habit of calculating how old I’ll be at every major milestone in my children’s lives.

I used to fantasize about travel. Now when I travel… all I fantasize about is my bathroom at home. In this episode, I talk about the strange midlife shift nobody warns you about:  when comfort, routine, sleep, shower pressure, and your own coffee suddenly become more exciting than the actual vacation. From airport exhaustion and hotel bathrooms…to shattaf withdrawal, overstimulation, and the reali...

When productivity becomes avoidance — and why slowing down feels so uncomfortable We’ve been taught to stay busy. To keep going. To do more, achieve more, prove more. But what if being busy isn’t ambition… what if it’s avoidance? In this episode, I unpack my own relationship with busyness — from constant work and overstimulation to the uncomfortable reality of what happens when everything slows do...

Have you ever looked at your life — when everything seems fine — and wondered… Was this really my choice… or everyone else’s? A conversation about regret, expectations, relationships, and the quiet realization that some choices may not have been entirely yours. In this episode, I talk about a quieter kind of regret... The kind that builds slowly — through expectations, compromises, relationships,...

We grew up watching two completely different models of marriage traditional and love-based. One seemed stable but predictable, the other exciting but often unsustainable. So what happens when we try to choose for ourselves… without really understanding what works? In this episode, I unpack the confusion around modern relationships in the Middle East—from chemistry vs compatibility, to being chosen...

The “Let Them” theory is everywhere right now. Let them ignore you. Let them disappoint you. Let them show you who they are. The idea is simple: stop reacting to other people’s behavior and detach. But what happens when “letting them” slowly turns into letting everyone walk all over you? In this episode of Don’t Call Me a Khawaga , Heba Shunbo reflects on the difference between emotional maturity...

What starts as a simple mistake—forgetting your kids’ school day—turns into something much bigger. In this episode, I share the story of the morning I thought it was a holiday… and walked straight into full school drop-off chaos. It was embarrassing. It was funny. It was a complete disaster. But it also revealed something deeper. Because for so many of us—especially women—we’ve slowly become the “...

Have you ever walked into a room and felt like two completely different versions of yourself were fighting to show up? The loud one. The quiet one. The one who connects. And the one who’s already planning her exit. In this episode, Heba unpacks the real question behind introversion vs extroversion — and why for many Arab Gen X women, it’s not about personality… it’s about conditioning. From being...

Now? Midnight feels… aggressive. In this episode of Don’t Call Me Khawaga , Heba goes out for a night out in Downtown Cairo — heels, Spanx, cabaret and all — and realizes something unsettling: Going out isn’t what it used to be. Is it Cairo that changed? Or is it us? From the chaos of Cairo nightlife to the quiet joy of being home by 10:30, this episode dives into the strange midlife shift many Ge...

Too Arab for the West. Too Western for the Arabs. Too Gen X for TikTok. Welcome to Don’t Call Me a Khawaga . This is a podcast for Arab Gen X women navigating midlife, identity, cultural contradictions, marriage, ambition, aging, and the quiet disorientation of living in between worlds. No self-help sermons. No curated perfection. Just real conversations, observations, and humor that keeps us sane...

What does “khawaga” actually mean? In Egypt and across the Middle East, it’s a word used for someone who doesn’t quite belong. Someone seen as foreign. Different. Outside the mold. Too Western here. Too Arab there. Too much, or never enough. In this first full episode, I explain why I’m launching this podcast now... and who it’s for. If you grew up in the ’80s and ’90s navigating more than one cul...