Living in Turkey has opened my mind and given me a future. But leaving my family behind has filled me with guilt
In 2017, I applied, in secret, for a scholarship to a university in Turkey. Even when I was accepted, I didn’t tell my parents for a while. I lived in Gaza, in the middle of Gaza City – a place that I, like my parents, had never left. Growing up as one of the 2 million people trapped in the Gaza Strip, you get bored with everything. Then, suddenly, when you decide to leave, it feels really hard. You are leaving the place where you have lived all your life, and your family and friends – and you don’t know whether you will ever be able to return.
At school, I achieved high grades. I wanted to study international relations, but my parents said it could be risky to study politics, so I switched to multimedia design and programming. I got good at coding and joined hackathons. Most nights, I would talk to people around the world online. I learned English that way – and by watching Ted Talks with subtitles. But my interest was still in international relations, something I thought I could use to help my country in some way in the future.
