"Never know where is home, where is my place; This has been my reality."

V. comes from the Republic of Gambia, a country in West Africa surrounded by Senegal. Her family comes from the Lebanese Republic. She lived in an African country with the Lebanese customs for five years, before her parents decided to send her in a boarding school in Great Britain, because the situation was too dangerous in Gambia. She left the continent with her sister to accede to better studies and to a better condition of life. Even if she left the country at five years old, she has still an attachment to the African and Lebanese culture that her parents bequeathed to her. The food she prepares even nowadays to her friends, as couscous and other Lebanese or African typical dishes, is an expression of her roots. Her family is still leaving there and she has not visited them for more than 10 years.

V. studied in England during the year, and she came back in Africa during the summer. In the boarding school, she learned new customs, a new language and a new culture. All was different there than in Gambia, she was in surety, she had access to a good education and she had the chance to grow up in a peaceful environment. She had the chance to travel to others countries in Europe while she was in Great Britain. Among other travels, she went to Germany for 6 months when she was fifteen years old. Even young, V already known how it was to be in a place where you know nobody, where you do not understand what people are saying, where you are not home. The Great Britain had influenced her. More than the country itself, the boarding school has influenced her way to see the life and her customs; she eats her toasts with a fork and a knife, because she had to do it during more than 10 years in England. Then, English is now her mother tongue, the language that she masters. When she was living with her parents, they were talking Arabic, French and English to her and she understood the three languages, but she lost this abilities while studying in a full-time English school. 

When she was 16 years old, she moved with her sister in Vancouver to go to the university. There, she spent 4 years studying communication at University of British Columbia. Because the language was the same than in England, it has been easier for her to move and to adapt herself to this new place. As she lived away from her parents all her life, being with her sister was enough for her. She did not have a big culture shock. She adapted her accent and her vocabulary to the Canadian English, which has differences with the British English. But, after moving several times from Africa to England, moving to Vancouver was not a big change in her life.

 Then, she moved to Quebec. First, she lived in Montreal. As an English speaker, leaving in Montreal was not challenging. But, for the first time, she moved without her sister, which was almost her only family considering that she had seen her parents only once in the past four years. The family is an important aspect in the life of V. Even if they lived far away from her, she kept contact with them. Now, she tried to show at her own daughter how it is to have a family. Leaving away from her parents helped her to realise how it is important to have a family. Sometimes, people which lived with their parents all their childhood do not understand as much as her how it is an important aspect to have a real home. 

Her biggest challenge has been her move to Matane. After London, Vancouver and Montreal, living in a small city as Matane already needed an adaptation. But the worst was that, there, almost nobody could understand her, because she did not speak French. She met someone who accepted to help her to learn French. Since this moment, learning the Quebec’s official language and understanding people while they are talking have been a challenge. Sometimes, she still does some mistakes in the choice of determiners, but she can easily communicate in French nowadays, which is essential in Rimouski, where she moved 6 years ago. Even if V realised that there are a lot of words which are the same in English and in French, the verb tenses, the determiners and the syntax seem really different to her and they were her biggest challenge while learning French. 


Discovering new cultures is a passion for V. She went in China last winter and she went in South America three years ago. She talked to me about the Quebecois culture, which has been a real discovery for her. She likes the music, the food, particularly the poutine, the pâté chinois and the tourtière, the movies and, more than everything, the Quebecois identity. She has never seen a people as proud of its language and its culture as Quebec, and that is what she appreciated the most here.  

V is now a citizen of Canada. Becoming a citizen has been an exploit for her. She had to learn the history of Canada better than a Canadian would do. She had to fill tonnes and tonnes of papers. But she did and she succeeded. She is now a citizen of Canada, she went through every challenge the life presented to her, all over the world.