Manar el-Sheikh
Random facts about Manar:
- From a very young age, I dreamt of being an astronaut. When I finished high school, I applied for a scholarship in the UAE to study applied physics and astronomy. I was accepted, but a condition for the scholarship was that I had to be in the UAE within a month. In the summer of 2015, there was no chance to travel outside Gaza, either from the Rafah or Erez crossings, so I wasn't able to claim my scholarship. This led me to choose my second passion, English literature.
- I also am extremely interested in community service and spend most of my spare time teaching English to orphans. Now, I dream of establishing an orphanage to take care of such children here in Gaza.
- If you ask my family, “Who is Manar?”, they might joke that she is a kind of weirdo who spends most of her time practicing yoga and discussing metaphysical power.
- I hope to visit Spain to see the diversity of cultures there. I like to read Spanish literature and one of my favorite works is the epic poem, "Cantar de Mio Cid,” written in 1140.
- Since I feel most alive in winter, and am obsessed with museums, I would love to visit Saint Petersburg in Russia, which is home to more than 200 museums, many of them in historic buildings.
- There are two persons I want to meet: The first is Al Pacino from "The Godfather" and the second is Chaker Khazaal, the Palestinian-Canadian writer.
