Sent abroad at fourteen, home at nineteen, a stranger in both places. What does it mean to belong — and when have you felt like a guest in your own life?
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Ten items. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Read the sentence, guess the meaning of the word in bold, then reveal.
Same method: guess from the sentence, then reveal.
Three words for building a new life. Guess, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, answer the quick check from memory, then discuss one question.
By the mid-1980s the war with Iraq had gone on for years, and Marji, now a teenager, was becoming more outspoken. Her parents feared for her safety and decided to send her abroad. At fourteen she travelled to Vienna, in Austria, to live and study far from her family.
Vienna was safe, but it was not easy. She was alone in a foreign city, learning a new language and moving from one home to another. She wanted to fit in, to be like the teenagers around her, and at times she was so uncomfortable that she hid where she came from. The culture shock and the homesickness were real.
The book is honest about the price. Safety had cost her the people she loved, and for a while she felt rootless: no longer the confident girl who argued with her teachers, not yet anyone new.
1. Why did Marji's parents send her to Vienna?
2. What was difficult about her first years there?
3. How did she feel afterwards?
1. They feared for her safety because she was outspoken and the war continued.
2. She was alone, learning a language and moving between homes; she felt culture shock and homesickness.
3. Rootless — no longer the confident girl she had been, and not yet anyone new.
After several difficult years she returned to Tehran in 1989. She expected to feel at home. Instead, she felt she no longer fully belonged: too European for Tehran, too Iranian for Vienna. Her feelings were ambivalent: relieved to see her family, and at the same time shut out of the city she had left.
The city had its own pressures. In public, the rules of the regime asked for conformity, especially from women: dress, behaviour and even laughter were watched. In private, behind closed doors, people lived quite differently, with parties, music and freedoms the street did not allow. Marji learned to live a double life.
The book shows both sides: the public face and the private refuge. It shows her small acts of rebellion, which could be dangerous, and her fear when the consequences came close. For the first time she is an outsider in the place she calls home.
1. How did Marji feel when she returned to Tehran?
2. What was the difference between public and private life?
3. What does the book show about her rebellion?
1. She no longer fully belonged — too European for Tehran and too Iranian for Vienna.
2. In public, conformity was expected; in private, people lived much more freely.
3. Her small acts of rebellion could be dangerous, and she was afraid of the consequences.
As an adult, Marji studied, worked, married and struggled. But she could not feel free in the city or the country she had returned to. In 1994 she decided to leave Iran again, this time for good.
The ending is not simple. The family she leaves behind loves her and wants her to be safe; her grandmother, whose advice she trusts, urges her to stay honest with herself and keep her integrity wherever she goes. The scene at the airport is quiet and sad: leaving is a kind of freedom, and also another loss.
The book does not tell us that she belongs to one place or the other. It suggests that identity can be built from two worlds, and that belonging may be something a person carries with her, rather than something a country gives.
1. When and why did Marji leave Iran for the second time?
2. What advice does her grandmother give?
3. What does the book suggest about belonging?
1. In 1994, because she could not feel free in the country she had returned to.
2. To stay honest with herself and keep her integrity wherever she goes.
3. That belonging may be something a person carries, rather than something a country gives.
When people talk about home, they often mix two different questions: where is the place, and how does it feel? The Home Map separates them, so you can say precisely whether you feel rooted, settled, like an outsider or like a stranger.
Each sentence describes an imagined moment about home. Which box of the map is it?
1. Roots — at home, in the place she comes from.
2. Outsider — a guest in the place she comes from.
3. Stranger — a guest where she lives now.
4. Settled — at home where she lives now.
5. Roots — at home in the place she comes from.
6. Outsider — a guest among people she once belonged with.
7. Stranger — a guest where she lives now.
8. Settled — at home where she lives now.
People live in several boxes. Someone can be Settled at work and a Stranger at the school gate. Place one moment at a time.
Boxes change. A Stranger can become Settled, and Roots can turn into Outsider. The interesting question is why.
It does not measure happiness. Being at home in two places can be wonderful or painful. The map describes position, not mood.
Talking about home and about the choices we did not make calls for a specific set of structures: wishes about the present, regrets about the past and complaints about things that will not change.
Put the verb in brackets in the correct form.
1. I wish I (live) closer to my family.
2. She wishes she (not / leave) so suddenly.
3. I wish people (stop) staring at me.
4. If only I (speak) the language better.
5. It's time they (let) her choose for herself.
1. lived (present wish)
2. hadn't left (regret about the past)
3. would stop (irritation at someone else's behaviour)
4. spoke (present wish)
5. let (it's time + past form)
Each sentence has one mistake with a wish structure. Rewrite it correctly.
1. I wish I can call home more often.
2. She wishes she didn't go to Vienna. (a regret about the past)
3. If only I would speak better German.
4. I wish you will stop interrupting.
5. I'd rather you don't mention it.
1. I wish I could call home more often.
2. She wishes she hadn't gone to Vienna.
3. If only I spoke better German.
4. I wish you would stop interrupting.
5. I'd rather you didn't mention it.
Write one sentence for each situation, using the structure in brackets.
1. You live far from your family, and you'd prefer to live nearby. (wish + past simple) →
2. You left a job too quickly and now regret it. (wish + past perfect) →
3. Your neighbours keep making noise at night. (wish + would) →
1. I wish I lived nearby/closer to my family.
2. I wish I hadn't left the job so quickly.
3. I wish my neighbours would stop/would be quieter at night.
Now say three sentences about places in your own life: a wish about the present, a regret about the past and something you wish someone would change.
Now it's your turn. Choose a task, start the timer and talk. On your own it works as a talk; with a partner or a group, take turns and respond to each other.
Where is home for you — a place, a person, a language or something else? Say how that has changed over time.
Use the Home Map on your own life. Which box are you in now, and which box were you in five years ago?
Tell us about going back to a place after a long time. What was the same, what was different and how did it make you feel?
Describe a decision about where to live, study or work that you sometimes wish had gone differently. What would you change?