Citizens of Nowhere by Debi Goodwin

Author:Debi Goodwin [Goodwin, Debi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-37603-9
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2010-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

In the quiet months of winter, others were forming their first impressions of Canada. Canadians, several students discovered, were surprisingly sociable and helpful. “If you don’t know something,” Halima said, “or you get lost on the street and even if it’s your first time and you ask somebody, that person sincerely tells you whatever you want.” Halima recalled one time when she was hurrying to catch a bus in downtown Halifax: “I was far from the lights and I crossed the road and there was this guy and he stopped the cars. He was kind to stop the other cars and let me get across. I don’t think that would have happened in Nairobi.”

Showing gratitude for all the help they had received was sometimes another matter. Some of the Somali students who had worked with aid agencies had come to Canada with the habit of saying “thank you.” But it was not a phrase natural to their culture, where those who had money and food gave them and those who were in need took them. It was a cultural difference that sometimes left those who helped them wondering if their gestures had been appreciated.

According to Abdi, gratitude in the Somali culture was not recognized with direct thanks but by acknowledging the deed to others. When you give, he said, “you will find out that that person is telling another person about your goodness. So Debi would give me something. I would tell someone that Debi is the best person, but I would not say thank you.” When the students talked about Canadians being welcoming and friendly, in their own way, they were showing gratitude for the acts of kindness they had received.

While they applauded the friendliness in Canada, they did not always feel comfortable with the openness they encountered. Abdi was bothered by the way complete strangers at bus stops would start asking him personal questions about where he was from and what he did. Others were bothered by the physically demonstrative way men and women acted in public and by the way women showed their bodies.

As a young woman in a confined and, for the most part, homogenous society, Halima had known not to touch a male who was not a relative or to walk too closely beside him, and she was always fully covered in his presence. The rules had been clear in the camps. In Canada, women who dressed in summer clothing and touched their boyfriends made her cringe, literally. In Kenya, people had told her there would be “naked” women on the streets of Canada, but she never believed it until she saw a nearly naked one herself, “a woman wearing just brassiere and shorts and she was standing close to a man, and once my eyes saw that I just turned away. I couldn’t look at that. I was shocked. I have never seen such a thing. Anyway, it’s life here and I have to accept it. But I don’t like it.”

What disturbed Hussein even

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