Political

Political problems.

                        Have you ever had family members that belonged to a political group organization in any country? Do you know how it feels to have most of your family involved in politics? This  is my story. I was born into a family that had political connections and an organization that my uncle just has in Guinea. Before my uncle started his political groups, our family used   to be a happy family. However, my family fell a part because of his activities with the government of Guinea. My uncle was the leader of the RPG, which stands for Rassemblement du People of Guinea. My family belonged to that one political group organization in my country, and this relationship to the R P G had profound effects on   my family.

In   the 1990’s my uncle was arrested and imprisoned by the Guinean government. I believed that was because he was trying to change the country. His political program was focused on the Guinean, economy and the development of Guinea. The reason why he was focusing on those elements was because the country has all the natural resource but the population was poor. He mission was to focus on the development of Guinea. Because we needed it at that time. Since Guinea became independent in 1954, the country only had two presidents. Because they were selfish and they did not care about welfare of their citizens, he started talking about the economy in Guinea, but no one was willing to consider his word.  Guinea Conakry supplies water to all of African continent and the country is very rich in natural resources; he wanted to changes many things which would have benefits people in Guinea. Somehow, the government found it out that my father was the financial supporter of my uncle activities, so they came after him. The reason why my father was helping my uncle was because my uncle had the vision for the development of Guinea .However my father had opportunity to help the country, and he love his country; He also had the money to give him.

When the government came after my father, they arrested him and later they killed by Guinean government. There is nothing that my mother can do about it, so she became depressed, and she became ill. My aunt take care us while my mother were sick. I was only too young when it happened. Now the only thing I know that my uncle was a politician, and my father was his financial supporter .Now I know what it means to be a politician in Africa because it means putting your family in danger. For example Celiou   Dalien Diallo now is running for president in Guinea. In 2008, he was beaten almost to death and sent to France, later that night the military armed came after he family while he was at hospital in France.

Another consequence of my uncle involvement was that my father young sister was arrested too and sent to prison. However, she managed to escape from the prison. Finally, my family was exiled to Senegal. After my family had the problems with the government. And my father was killed, my uncle still in prison. That meant, we did not families have anybody to stay with in Guinea. My mother, my aunt and my other five siblings went to Senegal to stay with my mother family. Since my mother was born in Senegal capital Dakar and she still has family there it was perfect place for us to live. Thankfully my aunt was there to take care of us, while mother was sick. My brothers and sisters and I went to school in Dakar. My aunt left us with our mother and she went to Europe. Three years later, she got my oldest sister a visa. I believed they worked extra hard to bring my oldest brother and me. Unfortunately, not all my siblings have been lucky an enough to go to Europe. We still have two more there in Senegal, because it is hard to get a visa now.

In conclusion, these political connections meant that my family experienced an inordinate amount of beating, and killing that effect our childhood.  I think that our family fears harm or mistreatment if we return to Guinea. We don’t have anything to do in Guinea. Unfortunately, we still have my young brother and my young sister in Dakar. My uncle was released in December 2003and he is now running a business in Senegal. He is no longer a politician. We all hope, however my country will become better country in the future.

Reflection of ‘Red Azalea’

I prefer ‘Red Azalea’ than ‘The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’. Actually, I can’t compare those two books for ‘Red Azalea’ is much better than the other one. When I read ‘The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’, I couldn’t feel any interesting facts. It was extremely ordinary book to me. I just read the book for finish my homework. The story couldn’t reach of my expectation. On the other hand, I couldn’t stop reading ‘Red Azalea’. It was very interesting book, and I learned many things about china’s history. Sometimes, the author made me happy and sad. Her un-normal experiences made her strong and smart. That’s why I really love her character. There are bunch of difficult word, which I have never seen, but I just ignored difficult words and I kept reading. I really love to read like books, magazines and newspaper. I would keep reading until I understand books without dictionary.

Donna Krol
ESL 100 (Writing First)
November 26, 2010

Final Reflection – Funny in Farsi

I like better book “Funny in Farsi” than “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”. I feel closer to the author Firoozeh Dumas. I experienced so many similar situations to her life in the USA as an immigrant. From perspective some of them now look funny but at that time incidents felt more like tragedy. In first book I learned about life in Botswana which was very interesting. I didn’t know much about Africa, so it was very enlightening for me. I learned many interesting episodes from life of Mma Ramotswe, first lady detective in her country. Everything for me was very exotic. However book “Funny in Farsi” is closer to my heart. For many people of different nationality life of Firoozeh in the U.S. is somehow familiar. I think a lot of immigrants experienced alike situations. Book was fascinating and written with humor, which is a big advantage.
Those two books are very diverse from what I used to read. When I was at school, I had to read book assigned by a teachers. Those books were written by classic writers and poets from different countries. They were meant to teach us about history of literature of the world. I hated Greek tragedies like “Antigone” by Sophocles and I hated Shakespeare, because of old, hard to understand language. My first book in English when I came to Chicago was “Islands of the Stream” by Earnest Hemmingway, when I learned spelling of all bad words. For my pleasure I was reading mysteries and romances.
I don’t have much time for reading books but I love to read magazines like “National Geographic”, “Prevention”, and ladies journals. If I have to read book assigned in school I will do it gladly. I know that I learn something new and interesting.

Interpreter of maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

The book  “Interpreter of maladies “by Jhumpa Lahiri left me with a nice, puzzled impression, which is the aim of the author – to make you think about simple and at the same time incomprehensible meaning of the life. Even though the book consists of different small stories, they are all connected together, and the last story explains more about Lahiri’s point of view on life and relationship between people. In all stories Lahiri writes about Indian people connected to the American culture. The author describes characters and events through the eyes of one character. The interesting thing is that those character usually a man. The author of the book, Indian origin, goes deep into her main character’s thoughts and feeling, revealing his, sometimes uncomfortable and frustrating, inner world. Lahiry pay a lot of attention on the most ordinary, subtle thoughts and fears, which occurs in the head of the main characters. She is bringing the unsweetened inner micro cosmoses of the  main characters, showing their  doubts and mental struggle to understand and except the world and people around them.  As I was reading the stories, I didn’t stop to be surprised and captured by the accuracy of Lahiry observation of man’s thoughts and behavior. Sometimes it was really frustrating for me  to realized that I also have similar experience in life, besides I don’t know what kind of thoughts my husband has. I noticed that the main characters usually possessed strengs, but at the same time they very weak and don’t know what love is, they see their spouse like a stranger, intruder in their life, however excepting them altogether like a necessary, inevitable event in life, similar to death or a birth. The most disappointing part in all the stories for me was an absence of any romantic feelings, passion, or attraction of characters to each other. Such attitude related to the peculiarities of Indian Culture, to the Hindu religion of acceptance and not questioning your destiny, life and circumstances.   The man, like a main character, also is the clever way to show the male dominance in Indian culture. Women’s happiness and wellbeing depends on man, and it makes man’s doubts and weaknesses loom bigger in the eyes of the reader.  

Funny in Farsi

Author used humorous writing skill to tell us what her life is. The stories in her life are funny. They always made me laugh. I also felt there is so much love and happy in her life. It is a great book for people who immigrated to the United States and learning English, like me. Through the book, I was not only reading a funny story, but also let me got a model of how to handle two cultures when they were shocking. Reader can have fun to know more about American culture and immigrants’ experiences from reading this book.

Interpreter of maladies

Interpreter of melodies
The book the Interpreter of melodies is constructed of many short depressing stories which are based on true life. Although, all the stories that I read were very impressive the one that interested me the most was “The treatment of Bibi Holder”. The story began describing how Bibi Holder suffered from an ailment, which no one was able to cure or figure out. In the book Bibi was also described as a woman who had lost her father and was living and sleeping in the corridor from the Holder Family. One day the Holder Family toked het to one of the best doctors, and the doctor said that all she needed to be cure was a husband. After that Bibi was taught how to talk to man, but she was never able to find one. Soon after tha,t the family which she use to live with abandon her, At the end of the story Bibi became a single mother and was happy at last, although the father of the baby remain a mystery.

The Joy Luck Club

The book ”The Joy Luck Club” written by Amy Tam talks about four Chinese women-drawn together by the shadow of their past-begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and 'say' stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. I enjoyed this book immensely. All four of the mothers had such high hopes for their daughters that they wouldn’t have to deal with any of the disasters to survive in their childhoods. It was so interesting. Then, their daughters thought of their mothers’ old-fashioned, old school Chinese ways; how they felt they could never live up to their mothers’ high expectations and creating incredible internal conflicts for all four daughters. This is the first book of Amy tam that I have read, and I really enjoyed the way she wrote it, or may because I am also Chinese. But sometimes the book seems a little bore. It totally talks about common lift of people. I still recommend this people for college students. It is easy to understand and close to lift.