I was beginning to understand other things, too, to peek out from inside my own skin … I read English books and played hopscotch and became obsessed with having a home again, with ending the wander days, rooting, and with the mysteries of adulthood. I craved everyone’s stories – I was becoming some later version of myself.
-- The Author (Narration) (Part 1, Chapter 1)

Importance: This quote sketches in the author's sense of who she was as a child, and most importantly who she was at the beginning of her journey as a refugee. There is a sense, in fact, as the narrative progresses, that she retains and lives from several of the characteristics she describes here, particularly her investigating "the mysteries of adulthood."

We had created our life’s great story; next would come the waiting time, camp, where we would tell it. Then struggle for asylum, when we would craft it. Then assimilation into new lives, when...
-- The Author (Narration) (Part 1, Chapter 1)