Read the passage carefully and answer the questions on it
Miss Williamson announced in class one day that she wanted one of us to live with her to help her with her domestic work after school. There was a rush to volunteer which took her completely by surprise. When she recovered and had quietened our excited shouting, there was a moment during which none of us dared breathe, as she scanned the eager faces. What made her choose me I have never found out, but I had noticed before that she was partial to me.
‘All right Karimu’, she said., You can come; but first run along and get your father’s consent’.
My parents were only too glad to have one mouth fewer to feed and my brothers and sisters to see the back of one who inevitably had begun to assume an air of superiority in talking to them. Miss Williamson’s bungalow was a stone’s throw from the school. That very evening saw me installed on a mat in a comer of her back veranda. I was unable to sleep, excited of the thought of the good fortune that had come my way. To be within earshot of Miss
Williamson’s English all day, to have access to her books, to nurse the possibility, overwhelming even in thought, of going with her frequently to Rofunkti – all these visions kept my eyes wide open and my brain racing until very late that night. With my ‘lapa’ pulled right over my head and happy beyond all description in my heart. I smiled myself to sleep.
I learnt a very great deal in Miss Williamson’s bungalow. Apart from improving my English, I learnt about the world outside, and began to sense that there were barriers much higher and much less easily gauged than those of mere language and color, between my own people and those from whom she sprang. The smiling teacher in the daytime often became the brooding restless, ill-tempered spinster in the evening. Her bungalow was shared by another lady, a doctor, also a Scot, who travelled to and fro between the two villages on a bicycle. I noticed that when not at their work or talking about it, these two women showed no signs of being happy. As I grew up with them, I found myself wondering what had made them leave their own country and come to live this strange life among a people whose ways were totally different from theirs.
Questions
(a) Why was Miss Williamson completely surprised?
(b) Why was Karimu’s family happy to see him go to stay at the bungalow?
(c) State the overwhelming thought that kept Karimu awake.
(d) What did Karimu find difficult to understand about the two ladies?
(e) Mention the identical trait in these two ladies’ behavior.
(1) “What made her choose me…” (i) What grammatical name is given to this expression as it is used in the passage? (il) What is its function?
(g) “I smiled myself to sleep” What is the meaning of this expression?
(h) For each of the following words, find another word or phrase which, means the same and which can replace it as it is used in the passage. (i) scanned; (ii) inevitably; (iii) nurse; (iv) visions; (v) gauged; (vi) brooding.
