Andrea: Hey Suong, what are those pictures you’ve got there? They look the same, but they’re not...

Suong: They’re both pictures of the village where my grandma and several of my relatives live. But one was taken before the landslide, and the other was taken after it.

Magda: Before what landslide?

Suong: One day, this hill which you can see on the right collapsed, buried several buildings, and that was that. That’s why we’re here today.

Andrea: Really? So you fled all the way here from the landslide, is that it?

Suong: I guess so. Dad bought this land after returning from the Czech Republic, the idea being that the whole family would work on it. We were always poor. But after the landslide we lost the land, and dad and my uncle lost their home. What’s more, dad got into debt. He tried his luck in Hanoi, but we still couldn’t support ourselves there and pay off the debt at the same time. And when my grandma got ill, we came here.

Magda: Wow... Hey Olga, has anything like that every happened to you?

Olga: Well, the entire Ukrainian economy went to pot ...

Everyone laughs.

Olga: Okay, imagine this: my parents weren’t paid for ten months, because the state simply didn’t have the money for wages.

Andrea: God, that’s awful. How did you get by?

Olga: You know what, I don’t even know. My parents somehow found a way of making ends meet, but eventually they gave up, which is why we’re here now. But that’s nothing compared to why Jami’s family had to escape.

Andrea: Do you know, he's never told me. Why did they escape?

Magda: You don’t know? Just look at the telly. What’s going on there is horrible. Two wars in the last ten years, for a start.

Suong: Apparently during one attack, soldiers killed six of Jami’s relatives.

Andrea: That's terrible, one day I’ll have to try to ask him about that.

Suong: It’s better not to, he hates talking about it, he probably went through a lot himself.

Nobody speaks for a moment.

Magda: I still can’t imagine it...