<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when the softly-spoken girl from Gaza \u2013 the only female to enter MOTG\u2019s latest tournament – blitzed the rest of the field she surprised many people, including herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t played in 10 years, so I spent most of the time trying to remember,\u201d the 39-year-old joked. \u201cI called my Dad to tell him, and he said, \u2018how did you do that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her Dad, along with her Aunty and brother, were the ones who introduced Asmaa to table tennis at eight years old, setting her on a path to represent Palestine when she was just 15. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After her success in America, her focus shifted to education, with Asmaa completing a master’s in mathematics before she began training teachers at the university and tutoring kids in English, Arabic and maths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to take my next degree, to be a doctor of maths, and I wish to teach in the same path. When I see someone understand, I feel good, that\u2019s why I love teaching.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, she\u2019s been in the camp in Greece by herself for two months but says the return to table tennis has brought about some smiles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI feel bad for leaving Gaza. It\u2019s not easy leaving my family. That\u2019s why I\u2019m playing now, sports make me happy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn my country, we don\u2019t have a good life. There are no jobs, and there are many problems, so I\u2019m leaving for another country to try again. I want to take my next degree, to be a doctor of maths, and I wish to teach on the same path. When I see someone understand, I feel good, that\u2019s why I love teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chios camp\u2019s table tennis champion has a little secret. Unbeknown to other camp residents, Asmaa won gold in the women\u2019s table tennis singles and silver in the doubles at the 1999 Special Olympics in North Carolina. So when the softly-spoken girl from Gaza \u2013 the only female to enter MOTG\u2019s latest tournament – blitzed the rest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movementontheground.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}