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Comment by daliaawad | Hacker News Reader

Hiii everyone, this is my first time posting here! I have read Hacker News sometimes but only thought about sharing my own post after seeing Manara's post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25849054) last month. I asked them if I can share this here and they said it was a good idea. :)

I’m a 19-year-old Gazan female who participated in Manara last year and got internships at Google and Repl.it. I’m so excited I will spend this summer at Google in Europe! I got lots of questions about my experience when people heard about it on Facebook so I wrote this blog post to let other young engineers in Palestine and the Middle East know how they can get into amazing companies like this too.

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Congrats! This post is awesome and really put a huge smile on my face. It reminded me of how enthusiastic I was about programming at your age and there aren't a lot of better places to start your career than at Google. Best of luck.

Probably the best post I’ve ever seen on HN. You’re a really good writer too, which is very rare for developers, so you’ve got a huge differentiator there!

In a language that I'm guessing wasn't her first, no less!

Completely agree - My eyes were glued to the screen start to finish and felt like I was on the journey with you! Awesome work!

Hi! I have some statements and one question. I love seeing women making their way into the field of technology and I truly wish you the best of luck. I have two daughters who are interested in computer science and engineering, and my oldest will be attending University this fall after being accepted at age 16. She has had to fight for things which would have been, in my opinion, granted without thought if she were male.

Thank you for being awesome! The world is already a better place with you in it!

As for my question, a friend of mine from Palestine told me that if I ever make it to Palestine that I must try ice cream from Rukab's Ice Cream. I've never made it there, and I'm not sure that I ever will. Have you eaten this? How does it compare to the ice cream in Europe?

Rukab’s is in Ramallah, in the West Bank. It looks tasty, and stretches like taffy.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/08/438473615/go...

Looks like Turkish ice cream (I don't know who invented it, it's what I've seen people call it). The article mentions this a bit.

There is a place in Sydney in Newtown that makes a great tasting one, and I had some from a theatrical man in a stall in Singapore once so something similar can be found around the world.

Hakiki is amazing. Get the chocolate baklava flavour, or the rose water flavour

Yes that's the one, I think I tried some kind of chocolate/hazelnut but it's been a while.

I strangely detest rose flavour unless it's also mixed with chocolate in which case I love it (and will devour a bag of chocolate coated Turkish delight).

I don’t in any way want to diminish the many good spirits here. Just to add a little fire under western readers’ butts.

It’s good to know when talking about Palestine whether you’re geographically talking about the West Bank or Gaza. They’re separated by not a lot of distance but a lot of different kinds of restrictions.

A lot of the rule over the West Bank vacillates between heavy lockdown and expansion of Israeli urban development. Most (not all) Gazans don’t get to experience even that flux.

The generic name is "booza", and it's popular in lost of countries in the region. The most famous comes from a shop in the souq in the Old City in Damascus, which is also the most efficient shop I've ever seen. The number of people they serve per minute is quite a sight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booza

Manara's Polish-American co-founder catching up late here to say I never tried that ice cream, but I do recommend eating knafeh in the West Bank and fattet hummus in Gaza! The food in in West Bank vs Gaza is quite different... I think Gaza is particularly good... but unfortunately it's almost impossible to get there unless you're a humanitarian worker or a journalist.

NOTE: if you work in tech and want to mentor in Palestine, check out Gaza Sky Geeks and Code for Palestine. They organize on-site travel for select volunteers (full transparency: I'm involved with both organizations)

Mmmm, knafeh!

You're doing so much for Palestine just by blogging and being the intelligent girl you are

Such an uplifting post! Your story is one of hope and if it inspires at least one more person, it will have achieved its purpose.

Congrats to you, Dalia, and best wishes / good luck to your mates as well.

To all - investment in girls' education lifts the entire society [1][2].

[1] https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/girlseducation [2] https://www.unicef.org/education/girls-education

Nothing against educating girls, but this is probably the wrong conclusion. Economic situation determines whether girls can get an education or not, so educated girls correlate with a good economic situation. Not the other way round (educated girls causing a good economic situation).

Personally, I think this focus on girls only is sexist and I take care to never donate to charities that only want to help girls.

I think in areas with more traditional cultures, educating girls DOES improve the situation over a longer time horizon.

Those girls will become mothers, and their education will translate to providing better opportunities and a more sophisticated outlook for their children.

I agree it seems sexist to only help girls, but helping anyone is good.

The argument that mothers can educate their kids seems good.

PLAN is a great charity for that. They do things like give girls food to take home from school. It made it so the family would be better off sending their girl to school. Efficient and effective!

PLAN has low overhead, too. They don't spend fortunes on marketing. A high percentage of donations (~90% IIRC) goes to the people in need.

I learned this from PLAN Canada, but I'm sure it is the same elsewhere. I have no relation, just a fan of their work.

Congratulations!

Your enthusiasm is actually charming. I'm sure it has put smile on many faces. It brings this nostalgic feeling of how many actually started. Have a blast in your career!

Congratulations! Have a great time at Google.

On another note, the repl.it interview sounds awesome. It's a rare interview process where the candidate gets to do useful and interesting work (in this case, work with operational transformations) as part of the interview process. Kudos to repl.it for their awesome sounding interview process and to you for crushing it. :)

OT? I read a post about CRDTs being more useful https://josephg.com/blog/crdts-are-the-future/

End of the day, both are hard to implement. On bugout.dev, I chose to go with a simple locking mechanism for collaboration (similar to WebDAV).

Congrats Dalia! And may your story - that someone from Gaza, especially a girl, is a talented dev (and writer!), and has landed a top global tech job - one day be so commonplace that it's not breaking news.

Congratulations from the MIT App Inventor Team. We're glad we could play a small part in your success. Wishing you continued success and happiness.

I am so happy for you. Obviously you are very talented and determined and despite the obvious handicaps this too often shitty world gave you, you are breaking out to the world stage. Congratulations!

How can we help? Do you need money for housing in Europe, better computers, anything? I am quite sure a lot of us would be glad to chip in.

Yes! How can we help? Having been helped in the past I’d be more than happy to pass it on!

Super happy for you!

Oh this is so kind of you. Right now I am all set but it is possible that I need help especially with simple things like how to find a place to stay when I arrive in Germany this summer. Again, thank you for offering help :)

The email is in my profile. Please do reach out should you need help.

Congratulations!

I'm curious: do people from Gaza primarily identify as "Gazan" versus "Palestinian"? I was confused for a moment by the title before I clicked, as I'd not seen that adjective used in that way before.

In my experience, yes: Palestinians from Gaza usually explicitly refer to themselves as Gazan (in Arabic: غزّاوي).

Source: lived in the UAE and have a number of Palestinian friends.

No, it's not about "Gazan vs Palestinian". It's that Arabs sometimes refer to someone using his city. For example, if someone is from the city of Khalil (Jericho), he might be called as "khalili", people from Nablus as nabulsi. This is a trend in most Arab countries, in Jordan, people from city of Maan refer themselves as Maanis, from Irbid as irbidawi, etc...

I think of myself as Gazan and Palestinian. Just like a Newyorker and American. But it was important to choose the word Gazan in the title because the Gaza situation is different from other parts of Palestine. Gaza is a very small piece of Palestine near the mediterranean sea. It’s 35 km long and 7 km wide. We are surrounded by walls on 3 sides and most of us have never been able to travel, that’s why I said Gazans because Google seemed as distant as an alien planet.

Congratulations and thank you for posting this inspirational story! I became interested in programming 26 years ago after taking the same class you did. So thanks to David Malan and his forebearer Margo Seltzer for CS50.

Congrats Dalia. I read your post and then returned here hoping that you were active in the comments. Not only are you clearly a strong engineer, but you're also a great writer which is an extremely valuable skill as you'll hopefully discover. Best of luck at Google!

Congrats Dalia! Thank you for sharing your story. I just about teared up in public reading it. I hope you have a great summer.

Me too! Very uplifting!!!

Really cool Dalia ! I hope you become a great coder and find your purpose :)

If after Google you're interested in sustainability and want to come work at a cool startup in France, let me know haha!

Ooooh thank you so much! That's great! Also, why don’t you hire someone else from Palestine though? They’re just as good and they’re available now…

I was in Manara’s 4th cohort. The 5th cohort just started hunting for internships and jobs. Two of them are my friends Hend and Rula, they’re just like me, they went to RBK and then Manara. You can meet them by emailing Manara (www.manara.tech)

What an incredibly gracious and thoughtful reply. Bravo to you for suggesting other folks.

I hope the parent poster contacts your friends.

I wish you much success this summer!

Hi, if I can ask, what are your choices for ISPs in Gaza? What is the situation like for residential fixed broadband, and for LTE services?

Well, we have good wired connections here in Gaza from Paltel and other companies but our phones only have 2G because of the political situation. The main problem can be with the electricity going off for long hours but we have alternative solutions: generators, batteries, etc.

Mashallah, congratulations!

Congrats, Dalia! I hope we'll continue to see posts from you in the future, documenting your progress.

Thank you so much! Sure I can come back and share more updates! :)

Dalia I want to wish you the best of luck. I am an Israeli and I loved reading this. I really hope to see more and more engineers from Gaza getting opportunities like the one you have.

In a previous role of mine I had the privilege of meeting and working with some Palestinian Engineers from the West Bank. It was only for a few days as it was an internal company hackathon, but it was still great and we are still in contact today.

Sure there were some differences and some interesting conversations but it also allowed us to hear each other’s perspective and to solve engineering problems together.

I hope to see more Palestinian Engineers succeeding like you are and also more Israeli and Palestinian engineers working on projects together.

Good luck and all the best!

Peace is around the corner. Soon more opportunities will open up for more Gazans. .(edit: i'm looking forward to the day)

Leadership will need to change first.

It's happening already! The Abraham Accords are the first step. Another half- generation or so, leadership issues will have resolved themselves. There's no point twiddling thumbs and waiting for bibi or abbas to expire.

Thank you for posting this. It reminds us that in any difficult situation the common man and woman on the ground can still be civil and have mutual respect

More often than not the common people on the ground have no personal reason to hate each other. Activists (I’m using this term to refer to all politically engaged individuals taking action according to their camp) and politicians are the ones stoking the tensions and creating situations to their advantage.

Mabrook

Really happy to read about your journey, incredibly inspirational.

Since you passed the bar at repl.it too, after your google internship you could get back in touch with repl.it and tell them you are now more experienced and still want an internship, they might just add you for the next summer.

I have to add, your story is heartwarming and I hope other people who aren't so fortunate will be able to learn and get more opportunity and achieve like you have.

Congratulations Dalia!

Did Google tell you that you will go physically to Europe for the internship? Last summer internships were virtual due to covid19 restrictions, and with the measures from most countries, I'd be surprised if this summer internships are held on the phyisical office, while Google still has WFH.

You can do anything! You are so powerful. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Congratulations Dalia! Best of luck with your new adventures in and outside of Google!

Your story motivated me even more to keep nurturing my niece's interest in programming :)

Which country(ies) in Europe you're going to? Hope COVID-19 doesn't spoil your travel opportunities!

The team I will be working with is located in Poland. But the internship will be remotely so I am working on getting a visa to Germany because Germany has a consulate service in Gaza so it’s easier for me to get that visa. I heard about another Manara participant who got into Google Poland and then had to wait 8 months for his visa because of Covid-19. He’s actually in West Bank and there is consulate service there but they stopped during Covid and he recommended I try Germany instead.

Oh wow, that's not good. In normal times, I know some European countries allowed you to enter with a tourist visa, which is much easier, then let you apply for a work visa once you got a job offer... and if you told them you came into the country for the personal job interview, you could wait for the visa while in the country! I know because I've done it... but that was many years ago and with COVID-19 now, I don't think they're even issuing tourist visas anyway. In any case, hope you manage without issues... I've been to both countries and they are both beautiful and very "European" (as in, lovely little towns, great food and very kind people).

This is a very uplifting post. Thanks for sharing. I hope more people will follow in your footprints, when they see it's possible.

About racism, it is sadly alive and well in Europe also. I think the tech hubs are likely better than many other places as they are more diverse. In Stockholm, where I am, we have had to import lots of SW developers as the industry demand is much larger than the local supply (SW developer is the single most common occupation, all categories) but I still see occasional instances of under-the-table racism - e.g. a landlord might prefer to rent out an apartment to a native swede before an immigrant. And women can also find themselves isolated and sometimes have to work much harder to prove themselves in a very male-dominated segment. But I think we're heading in the right direction at least. Hopefully, my daughters will not experience these things, if they choose to work in SW development when they're adults.

Keep up the trailblazing!

It's unfortunate, but it's understandable that "regular" people want to minimize risks by e.g. avoiding the unknown. What I mean is that you can't really blame the typical citizen who sees something unknown, reads the news and is concerned about his/her property.

Non-western immigrants in Sweden have a bad reputation, simply because integration has been handled poorly by the government (and their immigration policies have arguably been way too open), and that people come with all kinds of backgrounds, war torn countries etc.

It's a chicken and egg situation, I think the best thing Sweden can do at this point is to partly shut the doors on immigration and focus on integrating the population currently living in ghetto like suburbs.

Understanding is not condoning. Their motivation for discriminating people on the basis of their ethnicity may be understandable, but cannot be forgiven. You can improve integration while also letting immigration in.

Thank you for sharing! The world is a dark place right now, and your story is very uplifting.

Do you program in - or what do you prefer - right to left as in Arabic or left to right as in Latin ? edit: I see now that the image was taken through a mirror, I thought it was right-to-left programming.

it's not a choice, we program LTR and in latin because it's a requirement of all programming languages (apart from insignificant exceptions)

There have been a couple of big HN threads about this - but IIRC, it's an art project rather than an executable language:

قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21352508 - Oct 2019 (623 comments)

Ramsey Nasser's Arabic programming language artwork - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7700691 - May 2014 (108 comments)

FWIW, it's the same in Israel.

Despite Hebrew and Arabic being right-to-left languages, all coding is done in normal left-to-right Latin (really, English) programming frameworks.

As Dalia noted, all major programming languages are left-to-right with Latin alphabet, and their frameworks/SDKs/APIs are filled with English words for functions and classes.

People then keep the IDEs in English? Or the UI is set up to the right-to-left flow, only the text blocks with the code itself are left-to-right?

My Iranian coworker leaves everything in English for what it’s worth. I can ask her what she would prefer and why?

we keep it in LTR although some prefer to set up the IDE for their preferred latin based non english language. it's because some software messes RTL and the translations for the technical keywords in arabic are not standardized. For example I can't tell you what "Refactoring" would be translated to in arabic

This can be amusingly seen peeking through in PHP sometimes. The scope-resolution operator appears in the code as "Paamayim Nekudotayim" (double-colon in Hebrew, for non-speakers). You can see it in parse errors:

> $ php -r :: > Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_resolution_operator#PHP

My first assumption (which I guess was correct) was that the image was flipped, but then I got confused because I started looking closer and, while I could see some English syntax ("for { ..."), it also looked as if there were Arabic characters mixed in, so I wondered if it was some interesting mix, and also that they were rendering English RTL.

Then I realized that was much less likely than simply having flipped the image.

Exactly! I program left to right in English like the whole world I think. :)

Congratulations! Your story is really inspiring.

Mabrook ya Dalia!

Congrats on your achievement and thank you for sharing your experiences. Best of luck in your future endeavors!

Congrats on your achievement! Do you plan on getting a degree or skipping it if you get an offer?

Thank you! I am planning to continue my studies after the internship :)

Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful story which I am sure will inspire many others.

Thanks for sharing such an inspiring story! Best of luck to you!!

Welcome to Google!

Excited for your new adventures - congratulations!

Congratulations! Your story is very inspiring.

Congratulations, and I am very proud of you!

Thank you! Wish you all the best!

Congratulations and good luck!

Congratulations!

Congrats!!!!

Thank you for sharing this. It was a pleasure to read - the youthful zest of your excitement and passion really expresses itself in your writing. I was also touched by how one of your immediate priorities is to help your parents and brothers financially. (Hope you are able fulfill all your wishes).

If you don't mind sharing with us - I am curious how educated your parents are and what their profession is currently?

Thank you! My father is an engineer and my mother has a master degree in psychology. My father works for al-baladiyya, I think in English it’s called the municipality. My mother is working with the Gaza Community Mental Health Program which is an NGO. My mom’s salary is stable but my dad’s is not.

The problem is that there are few jobs in Gaza due to the wars and the closed borders. Lucky us they are working but my father is earning just 50% of the actual salary. This happens a lot in Gaza nowadays. The economic situation has been getting a lot worse for the last few years.

Forgive my ignorance and curiosity - but why is your father's pay not steady if he works in a municipality? If he works at a Muncipality, it should mean he works for the government, and everywhere in the world government jobs pay may be low but it is supposed to be steady with good job security?

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