841: My Senior Year
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From W. B. Easy chicago. It's this american life in honor jpy walt sitting in for ira glass. It's the first day of high school. South lake city.

A bunch of students are standing around outside in clusters, and the seniors are wearing little kid backpacks, nini turtles, hello Kitty, spider man, big seventeen, eighteen year old kids in winning the pooh backpacks, my college, miki milk. Talk to seniors, australian andy, so you guys, what is the deal with? Like, what's up with the backtags? Why is this a senior thing?

Because like, we enter school can regard them like with kids back fast, you know, because there are little kids and then we're like leaving school with these on as well. You guys have any any specific .

plans you ready made for this year that like you wanted do together because IT is your senior .

year actually on thursday or tomorrow and the good classes so could be like together more and like we have the same lunches and stuff yeah you s are have .

and how many classes together?

zero. So your .

plan for trying to get the same classes.

we're a gg cancer. We like have great anxiety, like have to be together. I'm like mark I because like mark, i'm like mark, please let us be together like we wanted. Enjoy single year. You know it's our last year together because we're not going different ways.

They are really feeling the last timeless of this year, ahead of them. The last year in these classes, in these holes, in backpacks, the last year of these friendships in this place with these people. After this, their lives will be different.

All of the seniors we talk to have a list of things you have to do, senior year stuff, seen other kids do before them, and also all the iconic experiences we've seen in a million movies and T, V. shows. The school, in fact, is actually the school from high school musical that was filmed here. Anyway, they all have list that include the classics from football games, homecoming senior, sung rise senior, sunset, senior parties, senior memory boxes. That's the thing that was new to me, along with there's .

a thing called trash bagging. It's like when it's raining, you put on a trash bag and slide down hills.

So like, do you step into the trash bag?

Yeah, like make holes for your legs and arms, probably like over you on a swim suit. Kind of, i've never done IT.

So he has .

to looming .

over each rate of passage, no matter how stupid is the fear that if you don't go for IT, you could miss something really special, something fleeting. You have one chance at senior year. You have to grab IT.

You have to go big fares buler day off. My number one inspiration.

this is VC. I want to be him.

I don't know if i'm well known enough to become used time very buler, but that's my goal is to take a an extraordinary crazy day off that will be talked about for generations.

She's still working on a plan for that, but in the meantime, this is got many other plans. VC says he spent most of high school going back home to her hall to study, not this year. So when you got an invite to a pink party for senior girls, something this is never we've gone to before, SHE went for IT.

I wore like a pink baby doll dress, I have me high gogo boots that I war, and I stole my mom's perl to her because I was kind of a formal event. And it's a tradition that the girls, i'll jump in the pool. I mean, my friend has jumped in the pool. I was talking with my friends the other day and we said that it's kind of fun to, you know, we complain about IT a lot, but it's kind of fun to just be a girl going to an american public high school because you get that kind of like american a high school thing, you know, being a seniors, this like hyped up event. So it's kind of like I get to do all of the trees, things that they do in the coming of age movies that make me feel like I really am, you know, just in american teenage girl.

I feel like i've GTA be happy with what i've done and feel satisfied with what i've done, like doing every, doing everything until it's worn out. And so I feel like I have no one finish business at this .

sky senior year. Just the idea of IT with all its rituals and big feelings and corsages, it's so powerful. People across the world know about the american high school experience is an american export. I've been following one kid who came to amErica as an exchange student and committed herself to the senior year experience in a way I have never seen before. SHE and a group of kids from all over the world showed up with fair buler and high school musical in their heads with their own ambitions of having the best year ever and going home with great memories. No experience or opportunity missed today show its senior .

year .

stay with us.

It's this american life act one yes, twenty twenty four. One of the many programs that brings international high school students to the united states is the yes program, the youth exchange and steady program. The program is run by the state department.

IT was created after nine eleven for students from places with a significant muslim population. The kids come to the U. S, spent a year at an american high school, live with an american family and, quote, engage in activities to learn about the U.

S. Society and values. Yes, is a really hard program to get into.

Kids spend years preparing to apply. They need excEllent grades, excEllent english skills, written and verbal. There's an interview of vetting process.

About thirty thousand students apply every year, and around three percent get in. In twenty twenty three, five hundred kids from gaza applied to the s program. Thirteen got in, and one of those was mugged. Okay.

so when I first heard about IT is like, only gone like that seems like the perfect life for me. I, anna, go there.

The yes program was muddled idea. Not her parents mugged as a kid who has plans for herself, you can feel the propulsion forward when you sit with mugged. It's exhilarating.

Sometimes is terrifying. Like writing shot on with a highly competent yet speeding driver, mudge heard about yes from kids who had already done IT yes. Alumni in gaza, Young adults who told, mugged about their year going to high school in america.

And they told me about like the application process in everything. So I started preparing really early.

What did they say about IT?

Um some of them described IT to me as if he was like a little heaven you're parting every day. You're getting five domino pizza xe everyday um yeah no for me, honestly, all my life I haven't been the phone going out kid. I was really focus on academic and I like the idea of the uh four point of scale GPA like other people were excited .

about domino's pizz and you were excited about the first point of great like.

I mean, yeah, I mean, I have kind have a reasonable explanation for that, but her explanation .

goes like this mudge wanted a perfect transcript. SHE wants to be eligible for the best scholarships to study astro physics at the best university, maybe in gaza or maybe in the U. S. Princeton looks interesting to her. Mosh doesn't want to strain ninety nine percent grade to get in the way of where she's going.

literally. Point, point really makes a difference. Like if you get nineteen nine point six, you get a scholarship, but if you get nineteen nine point five percent, which is a four point, you don't get the scholarship bring you.

When you figured out this out.

pretty Young, i'd say like six grade SHE applied .

along with her friend of druck man, he goes by a boot. And on february sixteen to twenty twenty three, they both got in, managed was fifteen years old.

and we both are screaming on the phone, and all the neighbors hurt me. And oh my god, IT was truly like sensational in gaza.

Yes, the lumen I are sort of like influencers. There are little famous, at least to the kids trying to get into the program. They post on instagram from their year in america.

And when they get back, theyd hold assemblies and run programs and seemed like the best of friends. The s group's had a real bond mugged, and her group of thirteen would be their own cruel. They'd be, yes, twenty four for two thousand, twenty four.

Some of them knew each other, and some met for the first time on a bus trip to jersey m. To get their visas a day. They all talk about as incredible.

One of them told me best day of his life a day. They really got close as a group. There is mudge in a boot. There is fat tim a, an exuberant fifteen year old, an extrovert from a family of introverts who could picture the whole year ahead of her.

The movies like locker room, like you have, like you go in a school bus, you have a lot of friends that like place force, you place force for yourself. And then like they would always mention in every single american high school movie, basketball or football.

what movies are you thinking of?

Like, oh, I remember mean girls.

oh yeah, I do you want to go to american? I go.

E, X.

Got a play in oklahoma in the small town.

I barely ever heard that. I know friends. I know bob dean.

I was like, H, I love me, but I was scared because like nobody y's there. I don't know anybody there. And it's like in the end of, like the map, oh my god, I waited for so long and I like that somewhere that worth, you know, california is value like a cool place. You know, I pictured los Angeles, but then, oh, northern california writing, I mean, you know, castle.

country and city california but and me I was like, oh, okay, oh hio. Well, let's to discover .

ohio in August twenty twenty three mugged leave swazi SHE says goodnight to her mom, dad and Younger sister. The yes twenty four kids arrive in washington, D. C. And take a group photo.

letter.

And then they all scatter. It's the last time we'll together before the end of the program, september twenty, twenty three mugged heads to washington state, a city called bremerton, a navy town about an hour and a half drive from seattle in her first few weeks in burma, most studied her new school, like SHE studied for exams. SHE took mental notes.

The R, O, T, C. Kids are higher status. Being in a relationship, highly valued academics was so the thing much.

Notice american teenager seemed to value above all else, though, was fun. Madge did not think of herself as fun. SHE didn't exactly think of herself as a teenager either.

Mugged is always more comfortable talking with adults. But no matter he was here to succeed as an american high school or so, SHE became a student of fun. SHE told me, incredible sly, when they finish a unit in class, the teacher had a rather with prizes. SHE took a video and showed to me, just look, he said, pointing at all the kid's .

cheering american hair course.

What makes that picture american has.

I don't know there, just i've noticed that they're very loud. I was just not used like one time I remember I fight to cheer like they do. I didn't work out. It's just, yeah, I can scream.

when did you try like.

for a basketball game and all the fives were great and we were having fun. But, you know, I said, okay, let me try but then 吧， yeah, I just feel so like kind of out of place, like, what am I doing? what? What am I screw you?

So what is IT sounds like when you try to cheer like in american?

For me, IT sounds like you're about trying like a rat, like dying.

Most was aware of all the ways you didn't fit in. Still, SHE wasn't miserable. He says he was the only muslims in school, but he was kind of expecting that her host family and older couple was not a great match, but to moved in with a new host family.

Better fit SHE ate lunch in the nurses office every day, but he liked the nurse. They talked, and nothing deterred her. Her goal was being the very best yes student.

Yes, kids are all encouraged to post on social media. Management was excited by the possibility of her posts being reposted by the official yes account. So merged went to everything, football games. Pep .

rally.

homecoming. IT all went into her yes twenty four highlight on instagram, october mush to have been in american high scholar for less than six weeks when homes attacked seller israel killed over one thousand israeli and took two hundred and fifty one people hostage.

Yeah, I was the weekend coming up and I was like about nine or ten P M. And I was just crawling on instagram on my phone and then I saw some like, we're news videos and i'm like, oh my god, is that really happening?

The next day, mush couldn't reach her parents or Younger sister. By monday morning, he got news. They were alive and at home, nothing more. By the end of that first week, IT sounded dire. Hey.

like things are really bad. We don't have electricity, we don't have anything. And at that time, they were running low on food too, and they were like, everything was closed.

And yeah, I was very worried about them. And yeah, I just like start having a lot of nightmares. Yeah, then they were trying not to tell me a lot of things for me, not to worry here.

But I I have ready like, no, a lot, a lot of things they can just hide IT for me. And IT was just very sad for for me to see that like they care about my safety and happiness and not about them. I was like, all my god, no.

Did they explicitly tell you don't worry about us?

Yes, they always like. And their messages, they said, oh, hi, good morning. How are you? How school? Like, have a great day and don't worry about us. We're fine.

In those first few weeks, the thirteen students from gaza were all taking in a constant stream of news every day. They were seeing explosions and rubble and bodies, one horrifying image after another. But when they called their who were in the place where those images were from, they got the same alarming positivity mudd was hearing.

Hi, honey, how are you? We're fine. How a school have a great day. Fat tim, a in main, calling her parents .

like they don't ever tell me what like if they're doing OK or not. They like over .

sad in ohio. They were trying to .

make me feel like all is good, but I know that my parents wouldn't tell me if something bad is actually happening with them. At that point was making me even more scared. IT was making me very much more worried because I know that even if actually something terrible is happening, I wouldn't even know.

The kids couldn't go back to gaza. Their parents wanted to protect them, protect their year. So the year students watched as some of their homes were destroyed and then their neighborhoods disappeared.

They were part of the war, but they were not part of the war. They were in ohio and reading, california, and snider, oklahoma. They were at soccer practice when their family packed up and fled their home.

They were in class when they learned their school in gaza had been flattened. They were eating at red lobster when they worried they're lost touch with their parents. Shared was in the bathroom at school when he saw a message on a group chat.

Her friend backing gaza was dead, killed with his mom and her sister. SHE went back to her photography class. They were in the midst of a group project .

we were kind of making a magazine cover, and we have to take pictures of our classmates. I took a picture of a guy named cabin who was very friendly. I used him to make a rockstar magazine.

He'd be the rock star on the cover.

He had some clearly and free zy hair, so I thought he would be cool for the scene. And I had him wear a leather jacket, and just we got an electric guitar re from the band, and I took a picture of her. And then I just continued working on the magazine.

Did you tell him your friend had died?

No, I just didn't want anything to seem like she's playing victim or, you know, I just don't like the hype of pretending to always be sad and always have a negative 的 but you .

wouldn't have been pretending。

I mean, yeah, I guess it's just me because maybe one of them were close to me and none of them were really interested in knowing anything. So I was like, it's fine. I could just go back to class and that way I can just forget. And maybe that would help me if I just found this, my life Normal ally.

This became the new imperative for all of them practice life Normally. When ale's friend was killed, he was in the middle of preparing a biology presentation. He went to biology class and ended his presentation.

IT was on elephants, a boots to a video of his best friend pulled from a pile of rubble. There is a news clip. He watched his friend on a stretch.

Abbot went to school, learned his friend's whole family had been killed. Dad, mother, grandparents, sisters, his friend and his Youngest brother were the sole survivors. After school that day, a boot went to a birthday party for his whole sister.

SHE was eight years old at cake. Practice life Normally, keep going, present on elephants, go to class, ride the bus, eat cake, try to reach your parents on the phone. Try again. The sale service and gaza kept going out. Muge kept trying.

I was just very worried about my family, specially like, I remember when how we came. I, I, I like, didn't talk to them for two weeks straight. And then I was halloween. And i'm like, oh my god, i'm dying to talk to them and you have heard .

from .

them for two weeks yeah no. But I still had to kind of put a mask and be happy in front of people. For me as an exchange student here, I still have to be like, you know, participle in american cultural activities and stuff like that.

So one of the activities was like, just sing up for halloween and going trick or treating, but the same time people were dying and gosa. And i'm like, okay, I wanted make this quick, but you know, just to still participate and make the family like feel that, hey, um I would love to participate in something that you do. What did you wear of and I I I was like her mining ranger.

You were her .

mini of a he was Harry father fan. He was .

practicing life Normally mugged. Share the video of our self tRicky treating in costume running into another potter fan.

Come, oh god.

from the moment, must shared her halloween post late that night. He could tell things had suddenly changed. The message is on instagram came in a rush, a good friend of her in gaza.

How do you people are dying and you were just slipping your life like fighting me like, how do you post something like that when your people are dying?

And another.

oh my god, I can't believe that I I chose you as one of my friends don't like post any stories as if nothing is happening. Why would we plan the people, uh, in the western like abroad, if though our people are doing like so like this.

there are more, many more. Where is your loyalty? You've betrayed us.

You don't belong to gaza. Weren't you posted more about palestine? moved. Read every single one.

Here they were, thirteen palestine, an teenagers trying to have their big, exciting year in amErica in the midst of the most immense tragedy imaginable.

What would they do? What should they do? The weight of the war was landing and merged a teenager, the exact moment in time when you are estimate choices about who you are and who you are not and when you are the most judge and the judgment that was hardest for her to take where the comments from .

people in gaza yeah they just said that you're not one of us anymore. Just like that. Like why are you guys like attacking me? I'm doing an exchange here.

I can't like i'm talking about i'm talking about us every chance I can. And people here they are living in their own bubble at least high school teenagers um they don't really look at the news. They don't know a lot about what's going on.

So the most of their cares would be like, oh, did you watch the newest movie that came out? And I like, I can really engage with you right now. I was very hard. You might notice me smiling a lot, but that's like my trauma that could isn't working.

I had noticed how much ged with smile when talking about her tremendous loss, her fear for her parents and sister, smiling when he told me her friend was killed, smiling IT was a little ery. How much you could see the effort to be OK on her face SHE say everyone hates me. Smile, more than two hundred friends backed me. Smile.

I lost a lot of friends who was craze. I mean, I lost some friends physically. They're not on tony more.

I lost some really close people that like, oh my god, they were like a huge part of my life. I was very hard. I completely .

understood why people are upset that mudge was posting. And having spent time with mugged, I completely understood why he was posting. Budged, came here to achieve something SHE saw posting about her experiences.

As part of that, the programme encourages kids to share stuff on social media. You like sharing things for all the Normal reasons. It's fun.

Show off what you're doing. But also for merged, SHE said as an expectation that he wanted to meet. So he was especially confused when some of the yes students also seemed to upset with her, stopped responding .

to her messages. IT was very hard, like, I don't have support from americans. I don't have support from areas to like that. The students and like, oh my god, where do I go? What what do I do?

November twenty, twenty three. Mush didn't post anything for almost a month, and SHE focus all her attention on one thing, her family. SHE went to school.

He did her work, but mostly SHE pleaded with her parents when he could reach them to please get out of gaza. Tried to evacuate, but her dad didn't want to a bit in their home, and they didn't have the money. Then SHE last touch with them for almost three weeks.

He waited to hear from them, and SHE wondered when you hear from the other. Yes, students SHE figured this was just a little blip. They'd get back in touch, but mostly IT was silence.

You d see one of them posting something from their daily life at instagram and think so. They are posting to that mean, they weren't actually matter her for posting. But if they weren't matted her for posting, what happened then? My heathy and teacher SHE never reached out to ask SHE just wondered.

December twenty, twenty three, mush was living with a nurse named tanner road. Tana would watch much come and go from a room, always clutching her phone. Sometimes their eyes puffy and red, tana tried to keep the fridge stock with parma cheese bangles from costa marsh seemed to like them in a gutter out of a room in the morning.

Tina has a teenage daughter of her own. SHE was careful with mudges Steve close available but gave monitor space. She's not one who will come down here and cry, you know, I can just sense this heavy ss and her .

understandably cause .

you know she's she's happy. She's chat chain. That girl loves to talk so I can feel IT when she's down before after over seventh, tina rote knew next to nothing about israeli or palestine.

SHE told me maybe she'd seen a bumper sticker one time. Now he was responsible for this palestinian kid SHE read everything. He could track the news.

He felt the numbers. November, more than ten thousand palestinians dead by Christmas, twenty thousand. Tina had a brand new awareness and a alarming awareness of just how vulnerable major's family was. SHE worried every single day thinking about, you know, mechanic, get the call at work today, the day that her families gone, like every every single day. And .

like that.

I I don't want to have to tell her time. Are you imagining like this kid is my responsibility if he loves his, her family? Yes, absolutely. China wasn't the only host mom who told me this for as host mom in oklahoma told machine, er has been SAT down together and walked through the different scenarios so they'd know what they were okay offering if they needed to offer. Fat timah overheard her host mother call a friend who had hosted a ukrainian student to ask her advice just in case.

january twenty.

twenty four, mush told her dad, if he wasn't gonna leave gaza for himself, he should at least do IT for her Younger sister. The argument mugg's made IT was very, her mans told them she's twelve years old. He needs to be in school without an education.

What kind of future will SHE have? Her dad relented. Tana, her host mom, helped mudge raise money to get her parents out of gaza.

February, her family made IT out of gaza. Moved, got a message. I was about .

to lose hope. But then one day he is a schooled me and said, oh, hey, where where we're traveling tomorrow.

like when you were like over there.

I I early love no words to describe. This is IT feels like you were just burning in flames and then somebody put water all over you and now you, yeah, you're not burning anymore. And I just want to school so happy that week I was crazy.

Everybody was noticed and even the year and they said of somebody, he's got good news here. What's going on? And yeah, they were also half of premier.

The first half of mudges year had been dominated by terrifying news from home and nightmares about family and social isolation. She'd been under so much pressure when this worry for her family lifted, mugged, to experienced a surge of energy. SHE was guilty.

He wanted to do everything. He wanted to be a kid on the s program, not just a kid in the mistake war. SHE wanted to be like all the other, yes, students from all the other countries that he was seeing in her instagram feed. Having a Normal american year.

I started to do golf a few days after my parents, who got out everything in life, started to be Better.

Why go?

Um I don't want to do a conventional sport um and i'm really bad at running so yeah I don't want to be too tired doing a word, but I still wanted to enjoy IT golf .

was posted to instagram .

Robin SHE never in a golf .

cart before does you have got curse for you from we know we don't have goals if you don't have buying nothing, how would I get there? I know IT .

wasn't just golf SHE joined bowling SHE tried tennis SHE went to a valentine's day party posted. A super ball party. Mess around a million balloons at a different party.

Boys higher.

hello.

March was all, and he was, say yes to the life that was in front of her. Sometimes just got messages from people who are upset about her posts, but not nearly as many. And they didn't get under her skin in the same way before mudge showed me.

And most pictures and videos SHE took of kids having fun. And she's in these videos. She's not just documenting the fun. She's having fun.

I love something I love about amErica is that they love to be very sadly, like this is one of my friends. He put the pm. pm. On his head.

I did not really understand what he was showing me in this picture, but what I got from IT was much has friends.

This is my other friend, Emily.

My weekend are pretty.

For now, it's crazy. IT was stunning .

to watch most rebound like this. Her stampa grit just stunning, stunning or concerning. Sometimes I wasn't sure all that stuff SHE just lived through, was still living through.

People were still getting bombed. Her parents were in an unstable situation, their future, and hers still very unclear when. SHE just putting all that aside for now, was that going to work? Maybe at least IT seemed like .

a really nice reprieve.

March, sometimes mugged, would open snaps, chat and the apple center at this time last year with the picture of her and the other. Yet students in gaza back then, they'd all just gotten accepted and we're meeting and texting each other, becoming a group you'd get a pang of longing and anxiety SHE miss them. SHE did not her from them in five months, where they are still chatting all the time, just without her late at night to stare at their profiles in bed, scrolling. And then finally.

one night I read shot to one of the girls and the exchange programme, and they're, oh my god, hi, how are you? SHE SHE started, like, talking to be a little bit like in a cold way. So yeah, I started, you know, being very friendly.

You so much like, how is you? You're going and I hope you're family safe and everything and I just started talking Normally and then after, uh like two days um SHE stopped like responding and I like, what did I say? Well, what did I do? It's got me feeling like all the exchange students are kind of against me, which they probably are.

but they might not be.

I mean, maybe not all of them. There are two students are are really but now they don't really talk about, yeah, it's very confusing. There's going to be something going on. And i'm gonna discover that when I see them again in june. So in june.

when they'll flighted dc, spend a few days of the state department for the end of the year program and then fly home, they couldn't fly home, right? All of the other students from gaza started the year planning to go back to gaza. They were slowly realizing that was not gonna happen.

The war was not ending. What was gonna en at the end of the school year. That's coming up from chicago public radio when our program continues. It's this american life on hana jeffy.

While sitting in for ira glass, we're telling the story of a group of thirteen students who came to the united states from gaza last september to do a year of high school in america. They are on a program run by the state department called yes, or in April twenty twenty four, two months before the end of the yes program. And then what the as kids were pinning their hopes on the year before the state department had extended the program for some ukrainian yes students.

Give them another year in the us. That's what mugged was hoping for. But then the state department sent letters to the kids saying they would not be extending the program for the thirteen students from gaza. The program would end june six.

You're gotta figure everything out by yourselves and like we're six senior old you know, weekend just come up with something from that and we need some sort of help.

The state department says IT did provide support to students that the health, safety and security of all students with their top priority, their goal was to reunite students with their families, and they say they worked closely with them on their post program plans. They also say they provided an equally rigorous ous process for exchange students from both ukraine and gaza.

But what muddled in the other students from gaza describe is feeling like they were on their own to come up with a plan. Even former's a master planner of her own life. This is a lot.

SHE looked at her options. Her parents didn't think IT made sense for her to come to egypt. Their situation wasn't stable.

Like all palestinians who fled gaza, they weren't allowed to work in egypt. Everything was incredibly expensive. As of April, her sister wasn't even able to go to school if much join them.

IT wasn't clear how you'd continue her education in egypt if the family could even continue staying there. So much frantically searched for boarding schools in the us. With scholarships that might be able to extend a student VISA in america, but the deadlines to apply had passed.

SHE learned everything he could about immigration law. SHE had relatives in michigan. SHE could maybe moving with them.

But what were the schools like? And how would you get a layer and study and live? SHE ran IT over and over in her head.

Okay, just say, I move in with my relatives, uh, in the U. S. And okay, what next? I don't have the right documents to even get a job.

I were not allowed to drive here, and I don't have health insurance, like my insurance from the state department. And soon. And then what am I gonna a do like I talk to my financial literacy to SHE like teaches us about insurance. And so he said, or you can buy IT from marketplace or something, but I don't, I don't, I don't work. I don't have an income to even pay for an insurance, so I don't know.

This was all of them. All thirteen teenagers were scrambling to figure out what to do and where to go, calling their parents, talking with the state department and casting around randomly for advice. Like fatima.

my friends were trying to help out like some of them are like, you have any people do you know in the states I like, I have road days about enough going to be like the right way to move with them.

This is you talking other like fifty year old, sixteen year old.

Yeah they just like we're asking me questions. And then after that, like I would like all that might be an option.

Mugged met with a lawyer who advised her proponent, SHE says the lawyer told her to apply for asylum, move in with a relatives in michigan, an in role in public school. There you could do a senior year again, find scholarships to go to college in the us. Marsh told me I will not be going back to gaza.

SHE sounded a little stunned, much than I talked about a lot of devastating things. But this was really the only time I could tell he was taking in the meaning of what he was saying. IT would be nearly impossible for her to leave the U.

S. While they waited for asylum. SHE had a new plan that he laid out for me, and at first he had that early smile, but then IT disappeared.

IT just breaks my heart that a place where crew up and I just, I just can see that again. The lawyer said that is going to take from seven to ten years at least, to get to get to an asylum interview because of the lack of fan asylum officers here in washington.

And like, are you telling me I have to wait seven to to ten years, like i'm gna be graduating in having, like my whole career and life here until I get to an interview, and then I have to wait again to to get the result yeah and I matter. Not seeing my family all of that time is crazy. Like one sixteen now, I mean, machine and you like, okay, let's calculate or ten years i'm gonna be like, you know, at least twenty six when I see them again.

And IT just feel for me of just telling you this, well, yeah, I still don't process that because both of my parents, like they have chronic on all. My god, I don't want go into that aspect, but they have chronic illnesses m like who knows in ten years if they're still going to be around or not. So oh my got this is hard.

He also like, i'm going the same assistant. She's at least twenty three years old. That's crazy.

Much puts your head down and start sort of laughing. Tell me if you need a break. Group, it's too much. okay.

Did do on the order food.

sure. Are you hungry? Yes, he is. And yes, he does need a break. Mudge would not be going back to gaza this year in amErica was not a year. IT was her life.

May tana majors host mom is driving her to seattle, mugged, is going for overnight with friends. When SHE was back home in gaza, marriage would come home after school and find her mom SHE sit down wherever her mom was in the living room or the kitchen and talk to talk about her day, her thoughts, her problems. SHE could go on and on until her mom usually kicked her out, telling her, okay, that's enough already.

I then something to talk for three hours in bramer tin. When mosh talks like this, it's either to the school nurse, miss Caroline or tina. She's in the front seat texting and also talking at rapid speed share jumping from topic to topic telling tana one of my teachers has been out for like two weeks. There's like an in teaching us or something um I should have had breakfast this morning. Did I tell you i'm running for a prom court?

I don't know, 只有我 那个 i don't know。 It's so embracing for me to just ask people to vote for me. And yeah, that's something I don't do. Yes.

can you give me to want life?

Ask for IT. I don't want .

to be clean or anything but like as he saw the court 去了。

SHE tells china, I probably won't get IT not exactly your typical pic, but mush says recently people seem so interested in her SHE thinks that might be because college students are protesting the war in gaza. It's all over the news. Kids in our high school suddenly know about gaza.

It's just a lot of people come up to me and say, like, oh, I got like, I understand like what you are going through, I feel for you and if you like to talk to someone like i'm here, like people started to be like really nice about IT yeah actually some some girl a while ago SHE came up to me and gave me a to do Better for like, oh, my god. Like I feel for you I sent that picture yeah I was like, oh, my god. Thank you. So words you know much .

tells time that he was up late last night worrying about seeing the other yes, students from gaza and dc SHE just really how soon IT is. I'm gonna out why they're stop talking to me. He says, who's my roommate gonna be? There's a pause, much stairs out the window. And then the .

other day was talking to my mom, and I don't know why, like I said something so randomly, but I did, just like her crying out of nowhere, because I don't remember how the inside of our fridge look like. You don't? No, I don't remember anything from our house.

Now it's crazy. Like, I remember how looks like cab, you know the the details of that. They're like, so blurry. Now.

another pass.

How long is the skin gna go for? You know, I I.

Pull into pack on her attention swings from gaza back to amErica and maybe this is just how she's gonna keep dealing with all this dipping into the sadness for a minute and then flipping back. He goes to sleep over. They visit the space needle. SHE had just star .

wars for the first time. I was very good. Yeah, we like the turbos man though.

Ten hours or something isn't IT.

how many hours is that? Twelve something like that? yeah. IT was amazing. I could see about night eating .

when you sound really happy.

Yes.

that same week, margent to prom and SHE won prom court. June, mugged is leaving washington state heading to dc. SHE singing about her year and about seeing other students just thinking. And he has a new theory about why they're not in touch. SHE thinks that goes back to when they first met back in gaza, when they all got into the s program.

Before I you know came to the U S. I was just very um academic oriented um yeah I I on this focus on my studies, I mean I still do here, but um yeah that can be a factor if I like they didn't really like me .

that much like they that you were too obsessed with .

school yeah I kind of talk to about IT a little too much like yeah lakes scholarships and academic or wow much that's .

like a huge aliza yeah I know .

it's it's hard to see like you know yourself from other people's kind of use yeah but you had that realization without .

anyone telling you that yeah nobody ever told me .

that I mean IT would have IT would have helped so much if actually sounds like if somebody actually pointed that out so I could notice .

yeah how did you get .

there um last month like when my fans are just saying goodbye to me like we're hanging out but they're saying like, oh my god, you're such a from person um like one of my friends signed my nearby and he said like everybody y's lucky to have you as a friend and their like 哦 my god this feels so weird but then I realize that hey I actually am a one person here in the U。 S. Yeah i'm not the same as I wasn't got to.

I'm even remembering when you said to me that you were trying to yell like amErica and still, but you couldn't make yourself. Do IT you remember?

Yeah, I I could not bring myself to be silly at any time, but now is just like Young shelling yesterday I was a chilling and watching cartoons.

I went down to washington, D. C, to talk to the other yes kids. This terrible year was ending here strAngely.

Hundreds of teenagers from all over the world filled in auditorium at the state department. Lots of layers and hugs. All the different countries are buying for any open space.

To take a group photo, the indians are really onna have to sort out which camera everyone supposed to look at. The staff is trying to get everyone seated. Good morning, and welcome.

Yes, students, and congratulations on a successful year. Give you all a around of the plows just to get started. But the thirteen kids from gaza are not here.

They're in a separate building by themselves with a councillor, and i'm not allowed there. They have a different program because unlike the other kids, they are nagging home. The hundreds of other yes students are celebrating their achievements.

They're standing up one by one. A kid from pakistan says his favorite part of the year was Christmas. He got to go Carrying with his host family in california.

He was amazing. A girl from kosovo says he played basketball for the first time means I actually got to be in the senior night also with all the various girls. The toy from liberia won an award for debate. The iyo from indonesia got awarded the most spirted cheerleader ever. Zn from the Philippines was cast the lead in two school place.

I don't really know what theater was. I didn't know that I was going to be love with you, but my host stand was a theater teacher and introduced me to many musical, so many plays, and I was big.

And finally, I wish you all save travel home, big huggs with your family. And we hope you come back again on another program in the future. Thank you.

I did manage, detective, many of the thirteen students from gaza over the next several weeks. And I got an answered to the question, mush had obsessed over all year what happened? Why they're go quiet? IT, it's true.

Some of them did find her focus on achievement annoying. Some of them had issues with some ever post. But that is not what happened.

A, the friend must applied with the very first person SHE called. When he got into the us. Program, he went to minnesota and he told me after he learned his friend's family had been killed. After watching video of his friend pulled out of the rebel, he kept going through the motions for a little while.

But then I just couldn't IT was in my eyes. The teachers were my eyes, I member. I I cried at night, and I did that they have. And the day after, I didn't want to talk to anybody, didn't want na see anybody, didn't want to get off bed, didn't wanna interact with anybody. I just want to not be eventually a boott .

as emotional nonlinear kicked in and never really went away.

It's like a black hole. IT is sometimes just sucking all of your organs in, sometimes just slog ing. Yeah, this is kind of how how I feel.

IT were you in touch with the other gozen exchange students .

during that time? At least I try to contact them few times I am OK how are you finding anything? I'm here for you but deep down I knew I was just is saying this, to say this because I, I, I couldn't tolerate IT you couldn't .

actually be there .

for them yeah, that's something i'm not very proud of. Sometimes I would ghost people because I just, I didn't have the, the, the capacity to deal with people.

The whole year. Mudd had wondered the most natural sixteen hundred year old question, what is everyone thinking about me? The answer is, they weren't thinking of her. Here, shared SHE was an ohio. I know I believe .

everyone was just too much focused on their own drama. I mei focused on my host family. If they see me talking to someone in arabic, they would make a huge deal. So like, no, i'm going to limit that.

And then I was focused too much about knowing, give my parents where I live that, and then focus on about how i'm gonna managed to make fans and high school with people who don't need them like my identity. Then fighting with my U. S. History teachers so he could make presents about my country was mainly just everyone is so much focusing on their drama that no one actually had the time or even thought about just talking each other because, you know, I even scared to ask them what the situation of their family was because I didn't want na hear someone saying that oh my brother, that oh my was short or something like that because I always felt like, I mean, i'm gona go and told him I like talk to them about what's going on with my family. But they could be going to something .

worse this I heard again and again, things were bad for me, but I didn't want to tell anyone about IT because I could have been worse for someone else. So they didn't talk. Mugged was alone in her experience.

And so we're all of them. They all went through a terrible thing separately, and then they continue on alone. Farah and fatima went to egypt to be with their parents.

They are both right now trying to figure out how to enroll in school there, which involves finding money and being sent from one government office to another. Asked to provide paperwork from educational institution that no longer exist, a lee is applying for asylum like mudges. A boot and shed both got into boarding school in the united states, a boot in role, new mexico.

When I asked what he knew about what I was like there, he said, have you seen the shining? You know, the castle? That's what IT looks like. They were supposed to be a cruel the yes twenty four group. They were supposed to take a group picture and added to the end of their instagram highlights, and then travel home and hugged their parents and present about their experiences in classrooms, mini celebrities, in a place most of them expected to live the rest of their lives. They were supposed to be the group of a lum night on stage in high school auditorium in gaza, telling the Younger kids, you got ta go, it'll change your life moves is in michigan now she's moved in with her relatives. How's IT?

It's been a little weird. You know, they cut her. Definitely different here.

Like what kind of thing .

I mean in friendly gatherings, in the kinds of foods that like um they may go to the mosque, seeing the community and everyone in yeah IT always reminds me fun.

I find myself .

like very sad and even crying sometimes because I want to be doing these things with my own family.

Much sounds so much older to me. Ever since he arrived in michigan, an, there's less of the urgent hyper kid SHE sad sometimes, but SHE sounds solid. She's talking about what happened last year in arabic, talking about her family with people who actually know her family enough like home at her own house, that it's not really possible for her to set everything aside.

SHE has to find a place for IT. She's noticing when he smiles as he is saying sad things, trying not to do that. She's started to therapy, and SHE started school again.

SHE needs more credits to graduate. Manager is doing another senior year, a senior year. SHE never planned on this time. She's not trying .

to make IT perfect.

Oh, is where? What to me?

But you so must be having fun. Let me say about you the battle we go along feed ground had.

Today's program was produced by Mickey k and edited by nani. Update the people who put together today show include die bond john called the actives Michael committee of viva decoration fell a manual joe Henry larson tubal cain doo stone Nelson nadia man maria berts in texter, ryan, remi, a millia, Shawn back, Frances wan, Christopher fatello, materna, july whittaker and diane our managing editor is our abdera our senior editor is David casting bm.

Our executive editor is a manual barry special things today to handy hawsey els o micelle vo Sophia little milk to pass a mila cambell riba mile Martin recap a cue crispi, jennie hester and the snider methodist church and all the parents of all the best students and their host families in amErica with us, our website, this american life, that org, you can stream our archive of over eight hundred episodes for absolutely free. This american life is delivered to public radio stations by P. R.

X. The public radio exchange. Thin, as always, to our bus error glass. He's actually visiting to meet this week.

We have surface anxiety like you have to be together weirdly.

IO said. Someone named mark has been keeping them apart.

Mark, please let us be to get i'm kana jeff.

I will join us next week for more stories of this american life.