What do we bring to the potluck?

The main guest of honour was refreshingly honest: "I'd like to apologize that I don't know everyone's names." She might have been surprised to hear this, but I didn't know everyone's names either, and I launched the group and co-organized the event.  Our group had somehow rippled outwards from being a few close friends and neighbors to being something larger, involving community leaders, local heroes and strangers willing to show up on a dark January night to bring a dish to our welcome potluck, held in the party room of the family's apartment building.

Arriving and settling

In theory, sponsors get 10 days' advance notification of the arrival of their refugee families.  In practice, it's been a bit chaotic lately.  We found out about our family's arrival less than 48 hours before their plane touched down, and, crucially, just a few hours before No Frills supermarket closed its doors for the two-day city-wide Christmas-Boxing Day holiday. We had already stocked the family's apartment with rice, lentils and other dry goods, but their fridge was empty. Have you been to No Frills late afternoon on Christmas Eve?  It felt weirdly festive, if a bit panicky, the way many things have felt lately.

New Canadians

This will be quick, because it's late at night, and it's been a long day: our sponsored family arrived in Canada this afternoon, and are now at home in their new apartment.  A long day for us, but a much longer one for them, waking up in Lebanon and traveling through Jordan and then on to Toronto, a city they had never imagined living in, a city whose name they were just learning to pronounce.  We are working on the old Torontonian thing of taking it down to 2 syllables: "Tranna".  Tomorrow we can work on the new Torontonian thing of calling it the 6.  (And the winner in the category "Best name of a Canadian refugee Sponsorship Group" is: Syria to the 6.)

Damascan impressions Part 2

Here are some pictures taken during a 2009 trip to Damascus, the city where the family we sponsor comes from. These are meant to provide glimpses of how thriving, utterly beautiful, and welcoming the city was before the war.

Moving in with Minister McCallum

Previous landlord: a tent?  Multi-page rental application forms are never terrific fun to fill out, and working on behalf of a family of six with no local credit history really takes things up a notch. Nevertheless there was some sporting fun in checking out the various prospects, and discovering that we were scared of some places, and other places were scared of us. Toronto apartments, it turns out, aren't very plentiful, and aren't very big: you need to be ready to pounce at the beginning of the month when departing tenants give notice, and for six people, you need to seek out the elusive three-bedroom, or its perhaps mythical cousin, the two-bedroom not capped at five occupants. Many rules about signatures, credit history and occupancy stand between refugees and housing that will work for them, and private sponsors may find themselves enjoying the samurai challenge of seeking out those soft spots where these rules have some flex.

Damascan impressions Part 1

Here are some pictures taken during a 2009 trip to Damascus, the city where the family we sponsor comes from. These are meant to provide glimpses of how thriving, utterly beautiful, and welcoming the city was before the war.

Syria, I love you

Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, 2009

My name is Katherine Blouin and I am an Associate Professor in Roman History at UTSC (Historical and Cultural Studies) and UofT (Classics).