Transcript – “My New Home: Évangéline Region”

Adil

Before coming here, I’d always dreamt of living in a rural area. In Morocco, we spent every summer at the beach. When I came here, I found a rural area, and the beach is right there. I couldn’t hope for better.

Maïté

I really feel welcome on the island. It has a real and extremely supportive community spirit.

Narrator

Welcome to “My New Home,” a deep dive into Welcoming Francophone Communities across Canada, a podcast of Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada.

Maïté

Hi, my name is Maïté Mézières. I come from a small village in Belgium and it’s been almost five years since I moved to the Evangeline Region, on Prince Edward Island.

Adil

Hi, my name is Adil Khalat, I’m from Casablanca, Morocco. I’ve been living in Evangeline for exactly 6 months.

Maïté

I felt a connection with the island. I told myself, “I have to move here, it’s so quiet and serene.” There isn’t much noise in town. There are green spaces and plenty of nature, which is important to me. You can often find me at the beach in the summer, walking for hours, looking for sea glass, which is what the locals like to call it. It’s glass that was thrown into the ocean a long time ago and that eventually finds its way back onto the beach and becomes like polished glass. There are small magical beaches where the water is super warm. It’s really nice to visit during the summer because the sand is red so the water heats up a bit more. Those who get cold easily can still enjoy the water, which is also pretty nice. Wherever we are on the island, we are at most 6 km away from a body of water. That’s what I like the most about the island because I love the sun, going to the beach, taking walks. Even in the winter, I love walking on the ice for hours before crossing over. That’s actually how my house was moved from one side of the bay to where it is now. This was back in the 1900s. My house was transported on the frozen river. What about you, Adil? What brought you to Evangeline?

Adil

There’s the situation with my child, which was a major factor. And there are also my wife’s studies, since she wanted to go back to school. There was no better place to go back to school than in Canada. It’s a country known for this. I have a child on the autism spectrum. He’s getting older, so we thought we’d better seek specific care. The thing is, it’s not that he doesn’t speak; he’s much better, but it’s a pretty specific disability so we had to find something for him. We looked everywhere and found New Brunswick and a little province right next to it: Prince Edward Island. We have it well in hand here and we really found what we were looking for to get closer to our child. So there you have it, we chose this province and couldn’t find anything better than this region. We got ready for a new adventure, if we can call it that, except Hurricane Fiona ruined our arrival a little bit. She caught us during our first week, so that wasn’t great. But truly, after the first week, everything started to come together little by little. In the end, I personally found it to be a great experience. From the moment we got here, our first month, our second month, we really fell in love with this region. As we say, I came to stay.

Maïté

Well, I’m happy to hear that you plan to stay with us. It’s funny that you came in the middle of Hurricane Fiona. When I first bought my house, a few days or a week later, Hurricane Dorian happened, and it knocked down one of my trees. A huge branch fell so I wasn’t able to leave my house. People came and asked if I needed help, and so on. It really showed the community spirit here. I really like how friendly people are. I really felt welcomed on the island and I find it has a really supportive community.

Maïté

We love this little island because I can simply speak French in the street. If someone recognizes my slight French accent, they start speaking French. We start a conversation in English and then suddenly, people realize we speak French and they switch to French. Speaking French as much as possible is important to me. There are a ton of work opportunities in French in the community, in community centres. There are also French organizations that look for new employees. Also at school—I know that the school board is always looking for people. Then, there are a lot of services offered in the region, such as banks, the Co-op, which is essentially the region’s go-to store, libraries, garages, hair dressers, etc.

Adil

I’ve found that it’s a fairly French, Acadian region. There’s a sense of security. Families everywhere know each other. They are mostly fishermen and farmers with beautiful churches. Truly, French culture is embedded here and it’s always here. There’s a certain mix, but we don’t really feel the difference between those who are from elsewhere versus those who are from here, so it forms a harmonious whole. That’s what I’ve felt, among those who speak French. There are people who speak French and English. For example, my landlord came to my house once and started speaking in a French I’ve never heard before... Maïté, you surely have more… Yeah, I know. It’s Acadian—the region’s selling point.

Maïté

But we sometimes slip into Acadian as well. It’s fine when I’m in the community but, well, when I speak with my family who are still in Belgium, they ask, “What did you say, Maïté?” because when I’m talking to them, Acadian expressions slip out. I say “je vais watcher la télé” instead of “je vais regarder la télévision.” Yep. Because here, they say “watcher” instead of “regarder.” So, we just take words like this, sometimes on the fly too. We all have our expressions, depending on what variation of French you’re speaking and what part of the world you are in. I find that it’s enriching to also be able to recognize the history behind words.

Adil

For sure, the first moment was the first snow fall. That was something really nice to see. We’d seen snow before, but to see snow fall for the first time… Everything is green and then the first snowflakes begin to fall. But truly, winter wasn’t as extreme as I expected it to be. But it’s true. This winter—I say this echoing people from the region—this winter and even last winter were really mild… really, really mild. They told me that it didn’t snow as much. I said, hear me out. It snowed a lot… No, it didn’t snow a lot, let me tell you. There you go. So they tell us it didn’t snow very much… nope…

This year, I discovered the activity of shovelling snow. I do it myself, I have a small driveway so I do it myself. It’s nice. It’s annoying but well… You do it with a shovel or a snow blower? No, no, I use a shovel. For a small driveway of 20 metres, I can do it. Shovelling snow is a really nice activity. And we built a snowman with the kids, which we weren’t used to doing. And behind us, we were facing the ocean, we could see icebergs taking form. It’s something magnificent and beautiful. We always take out our phones to take nice pictures. We have amazing sunsets. It’s really nice that we lived through this winter, where we barely even felt the cold. I honestly didn’t feel anything… it really wasn’t the type of cold I was expecting. Already, we continue to live just as we did in Morocco, despite some changes in habits. We are really into the children’s activities. Discovering hockey, for example. It’s winter so we go see hockey games sometimes. We’ve discovered a good number of sports that we’d never seen before, that we’d only heard of… that we always watched on TV. Just discovering this has been an activity for us. Like you explained, there are many green spaces. Hiking, even during winter, is always nice for us and our kids. Those spaces are always there for that. When we came here, we truly thought of staying in Canada.

Maïté

The only thing to watch out for are mosquitoes. They love the island. So, there is not a moment during summer without a mosquito. A small drawback but really, in the face of nature, of the beautiful sunrises, it’s priceless. For sure, we need a car to get around but there are ways to find affordable cars. But that’s true anywhere. And, learning a new culture is really enriching.

Adil

Oh yes, I completely agree. I really encourage people who want to live in a diverse, French, welcoming, and safe environment to come settle here in the Evangeline Region. I’m already selling it. In five years, I can see myself creating a project. Something that lets you increasingly integrate yourself into the community. So by creating a project, we can create a dynamic of employability. It’s nice to be autonomous. It helps a lot. So the next step is to get permanent residence, citizenship, and to create a project.

Maïté

Alright, well in five years, I see myself staying in the region but I still see myself greatly involved in the community because it’s something that makes me really happy. Trying to promote the region a little, etc. I would like to tell people who are interested in coming to the region that people here are extremely welcoming. We can develop a lot of friendships, and people are really open about all of this.

Maïté

Thank you Adil for being here with me and I hope we’ll see each other soon at events or in the region.

Adil

Thank you, Maïté. It was a pleasure to speak with you.

Narrator

Thank you for tuning in to “My New Home.” A podcast of Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada featuring Welcoming Francophone Communities. Don’t miss other Welcoming Francophone Communities across Canada episodes.