Los Angeles Times · 27 July 1996

CP-1996-010

‘When I First Got My Legs, I Had to Practice Every Day’

Making a Difference

Interviewed by Kate Seelye

Transcribed from the clipping

“YOSHIO SETIGUCHI, pediatrician and prosthetics specialist: ‘The biggest problem for Nizar initially was adapting to this country. Here was a 10-year-old from a refugee camp. Suddenly he was here in sunny Southern California… There is no question that Nizar is a fortunate kid, but this always raises the question of why he was selected and what about the others that didn’t get selected.’ LEILA BROOKS, businesswoman and host mother: ‘I’ll never forget what he told me a few years ago when he was 12 or 13. His family is very poor. He said the first money he makes, he’s going to buy his dad a new donkey. He didn’t want to buy a game or a computer.’ NIZAR EL-BARKY: ‘I have been coming to the States since I was 10. It’s fun going to places like Disneyland. I can’t have this kind of fun in Gaza… When I first got my legs, I had to practice walking every day in the hospital for many months… There’s a woman at the hospital with no legs and no arms, and she drives a van. I look at her and think if she can drive, I can do anything.’ [El Barky was injured when he was 9. He said he reached for something that dropped from an Israeli helicopter that he thought was a toy. It exploded.] ‘It was pretty bad. Sometimes I say, why me, why Nizar, but it could happen to anyone. At least I have my mind, I have my brain… I got a letter from Bill Clinton. It made me feel good. I know there’s a lot of other kids that didn’t have this chance. Many wonderful people have helped me to come here. If they hadn’t, I’d still be in a wheelchair in Palestine.’”

Photograph caption

Nizar El-Barky after getting his new prosthetics.

Context added by this archive

Three people are given headed sections of their own: a surgeon, a host mother, and a fifteen-year-old from Gaza who lost both legs and an arm at nine. He gets the longest. He talks about Disneyland, a donkey he means to buy his father, an award he won for learning to read, a letter from a president, and a woman at the hospital who drives a van. How he was injured is printed in square brackets.

Cite this item

"‘When I First Got My Legs, I Had to Practice Every Day’," Los Angeles Times, 27 July 1996. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1996-010. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1996-010

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