I was fifteen when I left home for Conakry, where I was to pursue a course in technical studies at the Ecole George-Poiret, now known as the Technical College.
I was leaving my parents for the second time. The first time was immediately after I had passed my scholarship examination when I acted as an interpreter to an officer who had come to map the land in our district in part of the neighboring Sudan. But on this second occasion, I was taking a lot of leave of them.
For a whole week, my mother had been gathering together some provisions for me. Conakry is about 400 miles from Kouroussa, and to my mother, it was an unknown, if not unexplored land, where God alone knows if I would get enough to eat. And so she collected together couscous, meat, fish, yams, rice and potatoes. The previous week, my mother had already undertaken a tour of the most celebrated marabouts, consulting them about my future and making many sacrifices. She had offered up an ox in memory of her father and had invoked the aid of her ancestors' spirits, so that good fortune might attend to me on a voyage which, in her eyes, was rather like departing for savage land; the fact that Conakry is the capital of Guinea only served to accentuate the strange character of the place where I was going.
On the eve of my departure, all the marabouts and witch-doctors, friends and notables, and whoever cared to cross our threshold, all attended a magnificent feast in our compound. For my mother believed that on this occasion no one should be turned away; so that the blessing I was to take with me would be complete. Moreover, this was the reason why the marabouts had requested such large quantities of food. And so each guest, after having eaten his fill, would seize me by the hand and bless me, saying: "May good fortune favour you! May your studies be fruitful! And may the Lord protect you!".
The writer's mother gathered food items for her son because __________
A. Conakry was far from Kouroussa B. she did not want him to eat food from Conakry C. she wanted to celebrate a magnificient feast D. she wanted to guard against the unknown E. there was no sufficient food in Conakry
Correct Answer: D
Explanation
The passage explains that the mother collected food because Conakry was "an unknown, if not unexplored land," and she was concerned about whether her son would have enough to eat there.
