Part 4: Understanding the text Task 5: What, when and who?
1. True or false? a. The writer has a personal and professional interest in refugees. b. The writer is critical of the West’s approach to refugees. c. The writer’s mother was a refugee.
2. What does the writer say about the problems in her country nowadays?
3. What do you think the phrase maternal grandmother (lines 15–16) means? 4. What do you think the word cacophony (line 22) means?
Task 6: How? 1. How did the writer find out more about her grandmother being a refugee?
2. How did the writer’s grandmother get a job?
Task 7: Why? 1. Why does the writer consider herself fortunate?
2. Why do you think the writer’s grandmother focused on noise and smells in her diary? 3. Why did the colleagues of the writer’s grandmother look at her more positively? 4. Why does the writer think that it is important to help refugees? Answer in your own words.