LAKE LENORE, Sask. – While happy to be in Canada, Halima Hassan regrets leaving behind half of her immediate family.
The mother of 13 was imprisoned in Ethiopia in 1993 and 1998 for supporting the wrong tribe in the east African country’s civil war.
She took her seven youngest children and one grandson with her when she fled to Nairobi, Kenya. After three years in a camp run by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, she and part of her family have come to this central Saskatchewan town to live. Her husband, jailed in 1993, is feared dead and she lost touch with her oldest children who stayed in Ethiopia.
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Hassan and her teenagers – six boys and one girl – arrived in Lake Lenore at the end of May, just as seeding wrapped up.
They immediately plunged into gardening and learning English from Al Gerwing, who was asked by the federal government to be their sponsor and mentor.
Gerwing privately sponsored a family from Eritrea five years ago. They now live in Regina.
Gerwing has moved out of his own house and into one down the street to make room for Hassan and her family. He said the community welcomed the family in a formal ceremony, but has had little contact with them since. The last family he sponsored made friends by doing errands and playing cards with the older people. Gerwing hopes the same thing happens this time.
The family is Moslem and prays five times a day to Mecca. For religious reasons, they do not allow themselves to be photographed. The children are tall, healthy and cheerful. Two of them speak English; the rest are learning.
Through translation with 15-year-old Abduselam , the family said their main concern is bringing to Canada Hassan’s five-year-old grandson Khalid, whom Canadian authorities would not allow to immigrate because he had no papers to document his connection with the rest of the family. Hassan gave him to another woman in the refugee camp where they stayed.
Gerwing has been faxing federal immigration minister Eleanor Caplan, asking her to let the young boy come to Canada.
He thinks Canadian bureaucrats, chastened by the human resources department’s carelessness with money, have been told to follow the rules exactly. No papers, no visa.
“It’s so unsatisfactory. The longer this is left, the more likely he’ll become a statistic. He could go immediately into kindergarten” in Lake Lenore this fall.
Gerwing, 78, joked he has aged five years in the past three weeks helping the family make the adjustment. He said it would be a burden lifted if the three eldest children take up the offer of a family friend and go to Toronto to work in a spice store. Their father had run a grocery store.
The family said food is a bit different in Canada, with more frozen items and less fresh produce. They cook with a lot of spices and said their favorite is injera Ð a large flat pancake eaten with a hot sauce. As in Ethiopian custom, they eat with their fingers, saying the meal tastes “sweeter” that way.
The family said they did not like Narobi because there were many thieves and the police would pick them up and hold them until given a bribe. The family earned money by barbering and making and selling crafts.
They did not choose to move to Canada. Instead, the Canadian embassy selected them from a list of refugees in the Kenyan camp.
Here in Canada, there is no phone or television in the house. When not taking language lessons, the children amuse themselves with ping pong, soccer and basketball. The oldest are eager to get jobs, while the younger ones look forward to school this fall.
