“Shokran, shokran,” Ahmad al Homsi repeated the word to me as we shook hands. Shokran, he tells me, is the Arabic word for thank you. Gratitude and happiness are the feelings he and his family are overwhelmed by after three years in Egypt, waiting to come to Canada. “Shokran Canada,” he said, his arms outstretched.
Ahmad, his wife Rahaf, and their two sons, Subhi and Karam, are the second family of five to arrive in Montreal, sponsored by the Dorval Mosque. Their plane landed on Monday, Dec. 21, after a 20 hour flight.
At the Dorval Mosque the day after the family settled into Rahaf’s sister’s home in Laval, I shook the rain from my coat and removed my shoes, as footwear is forbidden past the entrance.
I met Rahaf in the basement, dwarfed by the mountains of clothing, material and toys that had been donated to the mosque. Her boys, Subhi, 8, and Karam, 6, played carelessly in the corner.
As we sat and talked with the help of a translator, she told me about how the family wasn’t safe in their home of Damascus, and after bombs started going off next to her son’s school, they knew it was time to flee.
What do you take when you don’t know where your next home will be, or for how long, I asked? “Your children. They are the only thing that matters,” she said, without hesitation.
The family chose Egypt because they had heard that other countries, like Lebanon, were harder on Syrians and made it near impossible for them to work. For three years, Rahaf worked as a hairdresser and her husband a mechanic.
Ahmad, shy at first to share his story, lit up to talk about the helpfulness and generosity of Canadians. “Everywhere in Montreal, people are smiling,” he said.
He knew Canada would be welcoming after he saw images of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the Internet, greeting new arrivals at the Pearson airport, in Toronto. “You don’t see that from any other country.”
He already has a job lined up in a factory. The children will be registered in school shortly.
Ahmad has five sisters and his mother still in Syria. His brother is living in Germany, after travelling by boat from Turkey as a refugee.
Giving tradition
The Dorval Mosque has raised $100,000, mostly through private donations, to sponsor five Syrian families to bring to Montreal. The first arrived in October, and three more have been approved.
“I think we are doing good work,” said the mosque’s president, Mehmet Deger. He has been particularly touched by the people of Lachine and Dorval who reached out with clothing donations after the last family arrived.
The stock piles of bags, blankets, shoes and clothes had easily doubled since I last visited the mosque, two months ago. For those who do not have the means to donate to the cause, Deger suggests they pray. “Prayer is the weapon of the poor,” he said.
This is not the first time the mosque has reached out to help people from war-torn countries. Between 1992 and 1995, 33 Bosnian families were sponsored by the Dorval Mosque.