Roaming the campus, the man with the peculiar accent and sunglasses is on the hunt. Students often see him on his cart at lunch busting down on snapback-wearing hoodlums. More than 7,500 miles from home, who really is this mysterious man who has found a spot in the school? The story starts in Port Said, a rather large city in Egypt surrounded by bodies of water. This is the birthplace of new assistant principal Gamal Salama.
Growing up with a math teacher for a mother, Salama was heavily influenced to also become a teacher himself. “I was around her during not just the school year but summers and afternoons,” he said. “Being around her just gave me a passion to teach math.”
Salama followed his passion to become a math teacher and went to Suez Canal University in Egypt. “The classes were very hard; out of my beginning class of 125, only 18 went on to graduate.”
He was one of those 18 and went on to become a teacher although his mother preferred him to become an engineer. After teaching junior high there for seven years, Salama was given what seems like an offer of a lifetime. He was offered a scholarship to come to America and attend the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
He moved to America in August of 1998 to attend school to learn new teaching strategies. After finishing school he moved to New York for a year before he heard California had a high demand for math teachers, which is what brought him to Stockton. He moved from school to school until he found a place here on campus.
“Moving was very difficult; I knew very little English.” He had to take English classes and even more classes just to get his credential to teach here in the states. Coming to America also made him have to leave all in his family back in Egypt.
“They’re all there: my mother, sister, brother, cousins, uncles.” But the distance still hasn’t stopped him from communicating with them. “I call them every week, probably every single Saturday since I’ve been here.”
Salama’s last visit to Egypt was in the summer of 2006 when his family was able to finally meet his two children who are now 8 and 10. Over the past year many political events have erupted in his native country. Revolutions have taken place to overthrow the government.
“It’s a great movement towards freedom,” he said. “I know it’s going to take time; it’s hard to turn a dictatorship into a new regime.”
The past Egyptian dictatorship is almost the complete opposite of the democracy we have here in America. Of the 13 years he has lived in the states, last election was the first he had participated in. “I was happy to vote.” The ‘08 election also had another sentimentality to Salama. “I was also celebrating my 10th anniversary of coming to America. Freedom and an education was the main reasons I came to America.”
