Monday, November 5, 2007

The Kite Runner - Disc 7

“I feel like a tourist in my own country” (Hosseini, 2005, p. 231). Explain citing specific examples.

7 comments:

Denise Persaud said...

Amir feels like a tourist in his own country because it has been such a long time since he has been there, and when he left, it wasn't the same way he left it. Taliban has taken over and many people have fled his hometown leaving their crumbled homes and lives. He sees the poverty and all of the homeless while he is in the car driving to the orphanage. Most of the homeless are mostly children no older than five or six. There are also no trees left because snipers used to hide in them.

martha said...

The quote that Amir states he feels like a tourist in his own country means as Denise stated in her blog that he has not been in Afghanistan for such a long time since he left and everything has changed drastically. Farid kept telling Amir that he would not be able to remember much b/c of all the changes that the Taliban made. All the buildings that he remembered seeing as a young child are destroyed.
A majority of things were in ruins and there were a lot of beggars in the street. Many familes had split apart b/c of not being able to support one another. Young children had to be put in orphanages where they didnt even have enough food to eat b/c it was becoming over populated. Just like the orphange where Sohrab stayed. There was also a lot of violence because of the Taliban.
When Farid the driver took Amir back to his home when he and Hassan used to play around he was able to remember past memories like it was yesterday but felt out of place b/c everything he remembered was different from when he was a child.
Also as Denise mentioned, there were not many trees and vegatation on the lands b/c of the lack of proper care and b/c the Taliban used them.

Safa said...

Amir says this quote when he views the disaster that has landed upon his country. people have fled away, corpses lay on the ground and all those once respectable people have lost all they own. Amir meets a begger who turns out to be one of amirs mothers coworkers which is sad since he was a teacher. Many kids were sent to orphanages, others live on the street. the families that still have homes have very little other possesstions, when amir went to farids brothers house they did not have enough food for both the guest and the children, and so amir ate while the kids watched.

Drilona said...

Amir’s quote “I feel like a tourist in my own country “means that a long time has passed since he left Afghanistan. He was very young when he left and returned about twenty six years later. Many changes had occurred during this long time, giving him the impression of being into another country. Almost all the buildings were destroyed and all the trees were cut down. Poverty had reached the maximum point. Afghan’s roads were full of beggars and young kid. Ironically one of them was amir’s mother coworker, a professor who provided important information to amir about his mother. One thing that made amir sad was the fact that all the stores that used to sell kites didn’t exist anymore. All these drastic changes that took place in Afghanistan made amir feel a foreigner in his own county.
Even though almost everything had change, most of them destroyed, he still felt that afghan is his place and he belonged there. That was the soil where he was born, where his mother died and where he fought for his father’s love. He felt that his strong bond between him and Afghanistan was still there, deep in his heart.

Dave DeLuca said...

when amir say farid that he feels like a tourist in his own country it means that.. he hasnt been to this country in over 20 years, since he fled the country the one night with baba. over the last 20 years the country has been attacked by the soviets and now the taliban are in rule. Farid told him that he would not be able to recognize anything in the country any more. Amir when first going into the country prob had the image of the things he used to see, tons of ppl walking around, open markets and buildings still standing.

once he was sitting inside the vehicle he saw, what had happened to the country. there were destroyed tanks and rusted old vehicles where children would play. also buildings were still standing but there would be no walls or roofs, everything was in shambles. Also there were many beggars on the street, most of them young children w.o fathers.

the orphange was destroyed and when they saw the new one, it was a disaster, it used to be an old warehouse, and it didnt have enough food or beds or blankets, the country had changed b.c of war and amir had not seen it in years, and everything was so different that its like he had never been there, and thats why he felt like a tourist.

Unknown said...

Amir feels like a tourist in his "own country" for many reasons. The most important reason to me is that since he has been away for a long time his hometown is not really his home anymore. As time passes everything changes. Including his home. The one huge change that everyone in the blog seems tot alk about is due to Taliban. The Taliban has dramatically changed Afghanistan from destroyed buildings new rules and laws.

Oleg said...

Ofcourse Amir feels like a tourist in his own country, all these years he's been living in U.S. and he got used to American and its culture. When Amir left afghanistan he was young, 18 years old and when he comes back there he is a middle aged man, 38 years old. Amir is not used to see people in the streets with automatic assault rifles and rocket launchers. When he left, Afghanistan has much more freedom, people were allowed to go see movies and participate in kite tournments. When he come back, he finds that his house is destroyed along with the orphanage his father built.

I can realte this to my own story. When I went to visit my own counry 4 years ago, I felt like a tourist too. It is because things change with time, some things get destroyed and new ones built. People change along with the environment.