One might think that opportunities for young students to study overseas are good things. They get to experience another culture, improve their foreign language skills, and make plenty of friends.
But when 16-year-old Ayah Tafesh left Gaza for America through Egypt, the Hamas security official checking her paperwork apparently misunderstood what the high school student said.
This turned out to be a very fortunate mistake for the young student.
The police officer working with Hamas asked me where I was going, I told him America,” Tafesh says. “Somehow he heard Egypt and he asked me ‘What are you going to do in Egypt?’ so I told him just, ‘study.’ So they let me in. If they saw my visa to America they wouldn’t have let me in.”
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According to Tafesh, when Hamas officials later realized that Tafesh was headed to America, they called Egyptian officials to try and get her to return to Gaza. The effort failed: Egyptian officers let the teen continue on her journey.
Tafesh has been spending the school year living with an American family in Juneau, Alaska going to high school with other local students. She came to the U.S. through the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program sponsored by the U.S. State Department.
“I want to take back the good view and the good picture about America that all, most of the people in my country have it wrong about America,” Tafesh told KTOO reporter Kelsey Gobroski.
