{"id":10778,"date":"2021-05-13T20:05:19","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T23:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/?p=10778"},"modified":"2022-05-03T11:12:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-03T14:12:40","slug":"from-two-years-to-two-months-to-two-days-this-is-bambis-systemically-welcoming-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/2021\/05\/13\/from-two-years-to-two-months-to-two-days-this-is-bambis-systemically-welcoming-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"From two years to two months to two days\u2026 This is Bambi\u2019s \u201csystemically\u201d welcoming Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When Bambi immigrated to Montreal, Qu\u00e9bec, Canada in 1990 (at age 17), it took her two years to adjust completely to her new Canadian life and feel she is a Montrealer and a Qu\u00e9becker. This became her new home. Thanks to her dad who loved to explore places with his family, she had the chance to visit almost all of Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s beautiful regions. She fell even more in love with her Qu\u00e9bec. It was natural for her to partly dedicate her PhD dissertation to her adoptive country and her country of birth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifteen years later, when she moved to Toronto, Ontario,\nit took her two weeks to feel Torontonian (thus Ontarian). She felt home. When\nshe left this charming city, she took the time to say good-bye to all those familiar\nfaces she used to see daily (i.e, in the subway stores, on her street, etc.).\nAmong those kind faces, there was a man whom she had the chance to meet again\nwhen she returned to Toronto many years later. She dropped by his store in the\nsubway, despite the huge number of people he sees daily, he recognized her,\nimagine. He even asked about her spouse and if he found a job in New Brunswick\n(NB).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bambi spent four years in Toronto. When she left the latter to accept her now suspended position, it took her two days to feel Sackvillian. She easily became a proud New Brunswicker. Even the bad cook she is managed to cook a seafood chowder (when her spouse, the king of their kitchen, was away!). She was told by her friends that she was officially a Maritimer ?. Well, Canadians are notoriously known to be kind and good-hearted. Maritimers perhaps even the most! For instance, when Bambi walks in the street of her university town, she is moved to see\/hear the town\u2019s cab drivers honk their horns and wave hello ?. It always reminds her of her childhood neighbourhood in Beirut. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she visits NB beautiful beaches,\nvillages, and cities, she meets good-hearted people who talk to strangers and\nmake them feel welcome. Local people in her town used to ask her spouse: \u201cAre\nyou from far away<\/em>?\u201d And when she opens her mouth, they ask her\u201d \u201cAre you\nfrom very far away<\/em>\u201d? Is there anything more cute and accurate than that?\nShe is indeed originally from very far away\u2026 and yet she feels so rooted, connected,\nand welcomed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, there are funny stories\nlike when she was working once until perhaps 1:00 AM in her office preparing the\nnext lecture and writing a grant. She finished and decided to take a cab instead\nof walking. Her spouse and her did not have the time to chat as he was rushing\nto return home fast and she was swamped. She learned from the cab driver that he\nwas on the airplane on his way home. In how many cities does this happen? Only\nin our cute Sackville\u2026 She thanked him for reassuring her ?.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once, a senior man asked her in a Tim\nHorton\u2019s in Moncton if he can touch her hair (it is curly and most people have\nstraight hair around here). She said: \u201cOf course, why not? Go ahead sir!<\/em>\u201d.\nHer spouse was amused by the scene. When Bambi was visiting the village of Bouctouche,\nonce, she bumped into a group of men speaking Chiac (the latter language is based\non Acadian French mixed with English\u2026 like Yiddish or Creole), she was fascinated!\nShe asked them if she can tape them to share with her sister in Lebanon (a French\nwriter and a journalist). They generously accepted. Her spouse and her sat with\nthem and chatted comparing the French of Qu\u00e9bec versus the one of Lebanon and the\none of NB. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year after year, she has sent a number of touristic videos to her loved ones in Lebanon and abroad to show them NB and the Maritimes. At one point, a cousin joked, asking whether she was being paid by her government to promote NB ?? She said: “no, I just love it<\/em>“!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A clever description of NB came from her smart spouse when they initially moved here. He said NB is like a mini-Canada. You have First nations, English-speaking, and French-speaking groups. You also have immigrants as well semi-rural areas. NB is a mini-Canada indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada has opened its arms to welcome Bambi and her family, offering them safety, dignity, and democracy\u2026 at least up until now. After two years in Canada, Bambi lucidly made the decision to stay and root herself in Canada. She kept her loyal love to her Lebanon whilst increasingly falling in love with her Canada. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conclude this post on a philosophical note, when she moved to Sackville, Bambi was asked the classical question: You come from a bigger place, how would you adjust to the smaller? She replied: Although I lived in bigger places like Toronto, Montreal, or Beirut, I come from a tiny country originally\u2026 plus I am small myself ?. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously now, when Bambi\u2019 sister\nasked her if the smallness of her new town (5000 people when full) bothers her.\nBambi replied that it is not the smallness of a place that would bother me, it\nis the small mindedness. She said it in French, mind you: \u00abCe n\u2019est pas la\npetitesse d\u2019un endroit qui me d\u00e9rangerait, c\u2019est plut\u00f4t la petitesse d\u2019esprit\u00bb.\n    <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intolerance of different opinions is\nnot just a sign of small-mindedness. It is a cheeky attack to academic freedom\/free\nexpression. Bambi is the target today. Tomorrow whom, across our universities or\ncountry? The double educational and democratic tragedy is the same: Fear. Silencing\nsomeone scares others. When fear is reinforced, democracy is diminished. No one\nshould be gagged in life, neither Bambi nor any other human being. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Bambi immigrated to Montreal, Qu\u00e9bec, Canada in 1990 (at age 17), it took her two years to adjust completely to her new Canadian life and feel she is a Montrealer and a Qu\u00e9becker. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10778"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10778"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19213,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10778\/revisions\/19213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}