From NASA To Gaza : An Inside Look.

A week ago I was a fresh senior embarking on my summer training with nothing but optimism and excitement; after all, I was going to get a sneak peak of how my future job would look like. My first day at the laboratory of Maen Clinic was shocking to say the least, despite everyone being very welcoming and understanding of my little experience as a young intern. It was everything I didn’t imagine or expect. I was blind sided.

Three years ago I quit pharmacy school at Al Ain University Of Science and Technology – UAE after finishing 2 semesters and came to Gaza to study Laboratory Medicine. It was love that drove me to this major, that miniature universe under the microscope and the peace that you feel when you work in the lab. But the first day of training was the contrary. The work load was huge; people didn’t stop flowing till the last hours of the work day. There was no peace, there was no ‘’Microscope Meditation’’. It was a battlefield. Everyone working in the lab were on their feet trying to catch up to stay as organized as possible. I came home and spent 2 hours on Skype complaining to my parents and telling them that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing this. Shocked and mortified are understatements of what I felt after my first day. Nothing and no one made sense. I was on the verge of giving up. I felt weary. Everything I ever dreamed of seemed like a joke.

A Breath Of Fresh Air

From NASA To Gaza

Last Saturday there was a seminar organized by Gaza Group of culture and Development. titled ‘’From NASA to Gaza’’ for Dr. Suleiman Baraka who is an astrophysicist from Gaza that worked with NASA. I was the first one to arrive. The seminar started and Dr. Suleiman being the inspiring person that he is can simply trigger your emotions with his wit and wisdom, he talked about what ignited his passion to physics and how despite the unstable circumstances of Gaza he managed to get his PhD from university of Pierre and Marie Curie – Paris and then found his way to NASA. And about how with imagination you can reach the maximum potential of your mind. For the entire seminar an overwhelming feeling of peace occupied my every sense. For a brief period of time I lost contact with the outside world because there was no force in this universe that could’ve distracted me from the undeniable power of Dr. Suleiman speaking from his mere experience. Here he is a living example of someone from the heart of Gaza, the home of uncertainty, contradictions, siege and occupation and against all odds he achieved what many may think was impossible or somehow, insane!.


Dreams Know No Borders 

You listen to him and you just believe, with your heart, with your brain, with your soul, you believe. You believe in yourself, in your maddest dreams, in your world, you believe that you too can make it. You believe. And then something that I thought died inside me a week ago was rising from beneath the molten anger caused by the shocking reality of my ‘’future job’’. And I finally saw what was staring me in the face the entire time. This was only the beginning. 

 I couldn’t see the sun any clearer than I did after I left the seminar. There she was the mesmerizing lady of fire smiling at sundown with the promise of a splendid tomorrow. Thank you Dr. Suleiman, thank you Gaza Group, thank you for everyone who worked on the event! From the bottom of my heart, thank you!  

It was a full house!