Lesson 5: Refugees

A. Look at the picture and discuss in groups the possible answers to the questions

Illustration: Dan Williams

1. What comes first in your mind when you look at the image?
2. What is the relationship between the child and the man?

B. Now read the text titled "Sea Prayer" by Khaled Hosseini and answer the questions that follow:

My dear Marwan, in the long summers of childhood, when I was a boy the age you are now, your uncles and I spread our mattress on the roof of your grandfather's farmhouse outside of Homs.

We woke in the mornings to the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, to the bleating of your grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots, the air cool and the sun a pale rim of persimmon to the east.

We took you there when you were a toddler. I have a sharply etched memory of your mother from that trip, showing you a herd of cows grazing in a field blown through with wild flowers. I wish you hadn't been so young. You wouldn't have forgotten the farmhouse, the soot of its stone walls, the creek where your uncles and I built a thousand boyhood dams. I wish you remembered Homs as I do, Marwan. In its bustling Old City, a mosque for us Muslims, a church for our Christian neighbours, and a grand souk for us all to haggle over gold pendants and fresh produce and bridal dresses. I wish you remembered the crowded lanes smelling of fried kibbeh and the evening walks we took with your mother around Clock Tower Square. But that life, that time, seems like a dream now, even to me, like some long-dissolved rumour. First came the protests. Then the siege. The skies spitting bombs. Starvation. Burials. These are the things you know. You know a bomb crater can be made into a swimming hole. You have learned dark blood is better news than bright. You have learned that mothers and sisters and classmates can be found in narrow gaps between concrete, bricks and exposed beams, little patches of sunlit skin shining in the dark. Your mother is here tonight, Marwan, with us, on this cold and moonlit beach, among the crying babies and the women worrying in tongues we don't speak. Afghans and Somalis and Iraqis and Eritreans and Syrians. All of us impatient for sunrise, all of us in dread of it. All of us in search of home. I have heard it said we are the uninvited. We are the unwelcome. We should take our misfortune elsewhere. But I hear your mother's voice, over the tide, and she whispers in my ear, "Oh, but if they saw, my darling. Even half of what you have. If only they saw. They would say kinder things, surely."

I look at your profile in the glow of this three-quarter moon, my boy, your eyelashes like calligraphy, closed in guileless sleep. I said to you, "Hold my hand. Nothing bad will happen." These are only words. A father's tricks. It slays your father, your faith in him. Because all I can think tonight is how deep the sea, and how vast, how indifferent. How powerless I am to protect you from it. All I can do is pray. Pray God steers the vessel true, when the shores slip out of eyeshot and we are a flyspeck in the heaving waters, pitching and tilting, easily swallowed. Because you, you are precious cargo, Marwan, the most precious there ever was. I pray the sea knows this. Inshallah. How I pray the sea knows this.

Note Etched - Deeply marked or engraved in memory. Persimmon - A type of orange fruit; here, it describes the pale color of the sun. Soot - Black powder or ash left from fire or smoke. Bustling - Full of energy and movement, busy. Haggle - To bargain or argue over the price of something. Siege - A military attack where enemies surround a place and cut off supplies. Crater - A large hole made by an explosion. Guileless - Innocent, without trickery or deceit. Heaving - Moving up and down, as in the motion of the sea. Flyspeck - Something very small, like a tiny dot. Pitching - Moving up and down suddenly, especially in rough waters.

C. True or false? If false, write down the correct statement

1. Marwan's father recalls waking up to the sound of cars and traffic during his childhood summers.

2. Marwan's father remembers showing him a herd of cows when he was a toddler.

3. Marwan's father remembers building dams in the creek near the farmhouse when he was a boy.

4. Marwan's father feels powerless to protect him from the sea during their journey.

5. Marwan's family was taking a trip to the beach for a holiday.

6. Marwan's father says the Old City of Homs had both a mosque and a church.

7. Marwan's father believes the sea is friendly and will protect them on their journey.

D. Answer the questions below:

1. Where did Marwan's father and his brothers sleep during the summers of his childhood?
2. What sounds did Marwan's father wake up to in the mornings at the farmhouse?
3. What does Marwan's father wish Marwan remembered about Homs?
4. Why does Marwan's father feel worried about the sea during their journey? E. "Sea Prayer" was inspired by the story of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in September 2015 while trying to reach safety in Europe. In the year after his death, 4,176 more people died or went missing on similar journeys. Imagine you are a refugee child. Write down how you would feel if you were one.