This is the age of the smartphone and internet, the age of the civilian-journalist. Seven years ago I watched on YouTube as a barrel bomb was dropped on a Syrian neighbourhood, killing several civilians, one of them my ex-boyfriend. He and the others were at the site of a previous bombing, civilian rescuers attempting to […]
Syria
Posted inFood + Drink
Where I work: Booza Emessa ice cream shop
Who he is Before he spent his days making ice cream, the frozen dessert was a rare treat for Samer Aljokhadar. “I loved ice cream as a child, but we were from a poor family,” he says. “We couldn’t have it all the time.” As a young adult, Aljokhadar worked for an ice cream factory […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Plenty to protest as Trudeau comes to Halifax (again)
From pipelines to airstrikes, Justin Trudeau will arrive in Halifax later this week still dealing with the fallout from a week of controversial political decisions. The prime minister will join hundreds of other Party faithful attending the Liberal’s national convention, which takes place Thursday through Saturday at the newly opened and already burdensome Halifax Convention Centre. Trudeau […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
No bullets, no bombs; just fast feet and a football
Reporters are having a hard time finding “exciting” news in Syria in the past few days, even weeks. This makes me happy. A strange thing for a journalist to say. Usually, we look for the action: a fire, robberies, something hot to catch our attention. But after seven years of war, boring is good. Sure, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Taxes are just another “culture shock” to living in Canada
The white wall in my room is always full of coloured sticky notes. Lots of them have new words I have learned in English, and some are notes to self: Do and do not. In the middle of last March, a new red sticky note has joined the others on the wall, it says: “income […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The perfect silence in Syria
I was in Grade Five when the teacher asked me, “What do you want to learn as a second language, English or French?” In some parts of Syria, kids had the chance to choose between the two. That was the first important decision I had to make. I felt joy at the idea of having […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Cultural icebreaking
“So, you will move to the farthest place in the world, where it snows all year.” This is what friends and family told me when they found out I was moving to Canada. “You are from Syria? I guess this is your first experience with snow; the desert air in your country is tough.” This […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Trudeau’s refugee cap undervalues Canadian values
Embed from Getty Images On a cold windless January night, Kate McKenna walked into a meeting to consider, with some hesitance, sponsoring a Syrian refugee family to move to Nova Scotia. “Don’t commit to too much,” she reminded herself, as she joined a small group in the gym of the St. James Parish Hall in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Refugee mental health care adds insult to injury
[Image-1] Roughly a year ago, the first government-sponsored Syrian refugees began to land in Canadian airports. Their arrival was greeted with jubilation by Canadians who saw it as a sign of a new direction for the country. Seemingly in testament to the fact that the federal government had turned over a new leaf, funding for […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Greetings to a career I didn’t reach
[Image-1] In 1995, when I was nine years old and living in Al-Swaidaa, a city in the south of Syria, my oldest sister used to take me with her to the hairdresser once a month. My love, my dream started there. I would read fashion magazines during each visit. They were my window to a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Speaking the same language
The Melli family think about their journey in terms of routes. There are the one they took to flee their apartment in a suburb of Damascus, and the roads that take each member of the family through HRM to their respective language classes. Then there are the daily adjustments to an unfamiliar place that nonetheless […]