Sunday Meal

I was contacted by Gloria of Global News who had done the original story of them when they first arrived, asking if we could do an update on them. It was set up for Friday Nov 9.
I arranged a translator (one of our fundraisers who speaks Arabic), and went to meet Jamal and Hiba at their French classes. Gloria and the photographer met us there and did some recording. They then went to get the kids from daycare, did some more filming, then came to the apartment and filmed some more. It was a long evening of filming and interviewing! But the effort paid off

http://globalnews.ca/video/3068992/the-halabis-syrians-in-montreal

I hadn’t seen them since Halloween night. Now they are a 30-minute drive, I don’t get there as often as I used to. They very tentatively asked if we had plans for Sunday – I said no. Hiba then said, “Abi, I come to house you?” I said Sure! So they came over to us on Sunday about 2 pm, brought food to cook, we enjoyed a very lovely afternoon together.
The way it usually goes is that I watch the kids, Jamal, Hiba and Karl cook. Ayham the 2-year-old is a real handful, the type of child who sees a box and dumps all contents out onto the floor. After 6 hours, including a 2-hour trip to the park, our living room was a real mess.
After a wonderful meal Hiba said, “My clean” and she made a move to start washing the pots. I said, “No Hiba, I’ll wash, you tidy up over there!” – I pointed to the living room, and she said, “No! I’ll clean!” So we all laughed, she would rather wash dishes than pick up all the tiny beads, x-mas decorations, hair bands, and jigsaw puzzles that were scattered over the floor. The kids are cute but wow! Our house is always in such a state when they go home!