Page 160 - Manual Vol 1

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exchanged news and discussed business. Grandfather - Ali Kadri – used to
welcome me with locum with nuts and cocoa, placed on a tray covered by a
white napkin crocheted by grandmother. Celebration!
Colonial shops, the smell of coffee made in a kettle, in the sand...and
how many other miracles that fulfilled my fairytale childhood written mainly in
Bucharest but also there, on the island that remained in my life as a precious
gift from my Mother and to the family from her side of the world.
All until one day...
I knew. I had read about the Mediterranean climate, about this island
of wild olives, the bearer of another world, not only for the vegetation but also
for the picturesque oriental population, a legacy of the passage of the Turks and
the Habsburg empire through this part of Europe.
Considered the target of heroism in the poems about the Argonauts
and the place where Hercules would have stayed, the history of Ada Kaleh
should be studied by today's generations. Because her story, full of
unexpected meanders of time, must not be erased from the heart of the earth.
Let's not forget it, even if the day when the strip of only 1750 m long
and 400 m wide was swallowed by the waters of the lake at the Iron Ports
Hydroelectric Plant made the Danube become a huge tear of the descendants of
its inhabitants.
- I remember - continued Ada - a day when my mother, a teacher, you
know, gathered her students on a trip (as we are today) on which obviously she
had taken me, too - had them around her and said looking at the waves: “Here,
under the waters, there is the street of my childhood and the land of my
ancestors.”
They listened to her while she created for them the love story of the
island of Ada Kaleh – an imaginary fortress created out of the longing for those
who passed down in legend.
A love story that I bring to you, right for the heart.

Task (50 points):
Make a list of the key words in the article. Use them to answer the fol-
lowing questions:
a.What is the text about?
b.Where does the action take place?
c.What is the outcome of the “love story”?