Helen Gray and the de-miners of Mozambique

by Janet Nicol

It may be the most dangerous job in the world, but it doesn’t seem to faze Helen Gray. The feisty Scot heads a team of female ‘de-miners’ in Mozambique, a country littered with thousands of lethal landmines after nearly two decades of deadly civil war. Over 900,000 died in the fighting, which began in 1977. Five million civilians were displaced, while thousands lost limbs as a result of the landmines. Gray and her Mozambican colleagues work for the HALO Trust, a small non-governmental organization whose sole mandate is to rid countries of military debris. And in Mozambique they’ve had resounding success. ‘More than 100,000 mines have been destroyed since 1994,’ according to Gray. ‘The four provinces in the north are now mine-free.’

De-miners’ work differs from that of sappers – soldiers who plant and disable landmines – so only the peace-minded need apply. Once an occupation dominated by men, HALO began recruiting women in the 1990s. Gray was just 24 when she signed on in 2004. She spent two years in Angola, then in 2007 transferred to Mozambique.

‘I wanted to work in the humanitarian field,’ Gray recalls from her temporary home in Chimoio, a city in the centre of the country. ‘This is tangible work. You destroy a landmine, it’s gone. De-mining is not a black art or rocket science. It just needs to be carried out methodically and safely. When the mines are cleared, we’ve removed a problem for the local community.’

When Mozambique’s conflict began, the Soviet-backed FRELIMO Government set landmines to defend power supplies and transport routes, while South African-supported RENAMO rebels countered with their own mines aimed at closing roads between towns and markets. A portion of the war debris can be cleared with mechanical devices, but most of the detailed clean-up requires people.

‘We make a difference,’ Gray admits. ‘Once the land is cleared, the local population can move freely, till the soil, build houses, walk to the river or simply not worry about their children running into the bush behind the village.’

Gray is well acquainted with the rural life, having grown up on a farm in East Lothian, Scotland. She worked as an environmental interpreter at the Scottish Seabird Centre and then spent a year as an expedition guide in Peru’s endangered rainforest.

‘First we survey the area,’ Gray says. ‘We speak to people in the community – ex-police officers, farmers and soldiers. It’s been 16 years since the war ended, but many still know where the mines are. We then create accurate surveys to identify minefields.’

A team of 10 people don face shields and bullet-proof vests before heading into the field. All have been highly trained and four of them, including the section commander and supervisor, also have paramedic skills.

Concentration is critical. ‘We use metal detectors and our work is very methodical,’ Gray explains. ‘We have tight rules for safety reasons. We mark the area with lines of red sticks and de-mine along clear wide strips, inch by inch.’

A mine could still explode unexpectedly. This means de-miners must stay on marked paths that have already been cleared. If there is an explosion, workers are trained to stay calm and follow the path out. A Land Rover ambulance, fitted with a radio for communication, is on site in case of emergency.

‘We start at 6 in the morning and finish at 1pm, six days a week,’ Gray continues. ‘Most of our teams are in camps near the worksite. We work for 50 minutes and take 10-minute breaks.’

HALO Trust currently employs 270 people across Mozambique. ‘It is important to hire local people so the salaries go back into the communities,’ Gray stresses. In fact, of the 8,000 employees working for HALO in nine countries, most are locals.

Recruiting women hasn’t been a problem. The women de-miners working with Gray are enthusiastic about their job.

Luisa Paulo Mondlane, 22, is single and says she became a de-miner ‘because of curiosity and necessity’. Her colleague Sheila Chiponde, 21, is proud and disciplined. Chiponde is single with one child: ‘I feel like a queen. It’s like a military life.’

Ercilia de Fatima, 24, and Flora Armando, 27, are both married with one child, and have been de-miners for almost two years. Both enjoy the strong friendships with staff, although Armando points out that ‘the tents allow water in when it rains’ and ‘it can be too hot when the sun is strong’. All four women hope to use their wages for more education.

HALO’s goal is to clear all the mines in Mozambique by 2014. But more funding is urgently needed to help pay salaries.

Last spring HALO teams near the capital, Maputo, began working in an area supposedly cleared by the state electrical company. They discovered thousands of landmines and unearthed human and animal skeletal remains. ‘It just goes to show the difference between commercial de-miners and humanitarian clearance,’ Gray says.

By ensuring the land is completely safe, Gray and her co-workers are building a hopeful future in Mozambique – mine by mine.

For more information visit the HALO website: www.halotrust.org

Reprinted from “New Internationalist” magazine, November, 2009.

by Janet Nicol

Work on the garden, meant to foster reconciliation after Lebanon’s civil war, was brought to a sudden halt during Israel’s 2006 invasion. But the project’s founder, Alexandra Asseily, a Beirut resident, is still optimistic.

The full article appears in the October-December issue of Peace magazine.
http://www.peacemagazine.org/

by Janet Nicol

Bushra Jamil was a young mother when she and her husband fled wartorn Iraq in 1994 to live in Canada. But, six years ago, with her two children grown, Jamil bravely returned to lend a helping hand in her ravaged homeland.

“It is my role to go back and teach Iraqis whatever I learned in Canada, especially women,” she says in an interview from her daughter’s home in Burnaby. “I always thought that in my life it is not enough just to be a mother and have a job. There is something else for me. I wanted more.”

Today Jamil works in Iraq as an officer with the United Nations. She monitors and reports on human rights conditions of Iraqis, travelling to both stable and embattled regions of the country.

Growing up under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Jamil knows firsthand the experience of living in a society without rights.

“Everyone had to be in the Baath party,” she remembers of her early life in Iraq.

Jamil had been teaching biology and chemistry in a high school in Baghdad, when she came under pressure to join the government party. “So they gave me a choice,” she explains. “[They said] ‘Either become a Baathist or we will transfer you to another job.’ I knew they would transfer me to a very bad place where I would have been humiliated every day. So I said, ‘I’ll make it easy. I quit. I don’t need your job.’”

Jamil says she had faced similar discrimination when she was still a student so she wasn’t too surprised. “When I graduated university, I was among the top 10 students and according to the rule of the time, the top 10 got a scholarship to England — but I got nothing.”

So when the first Persian Gulf War rose up, it wasn’t a difficult decision for Jamil, her husband and two children to pack their bags for Canada.

“I worked here for five years as a biologist in environmental labs,” Jamil says about her initial immigrant years in British Columbia. “I then decided to go back to school and study business management.”

Moving to Prince George, Jamil volunteered with Immigrant and Multicultural Services Society while studying. After completing her business program, Jamil joined the society as a paid employee. “While I was working there, the 2003 war started and, of course, all my family was back in Iraq — my mom and dad, sisters and brothers — everybody. Deep inside I was happy. We were going to get rid of Saddam Hussein,” she says.

“And in May 2003, just after the fall of Baghdad, I got a job in Iraq as a cultural adviser with the Americans.”

It was a long commute from Canada, but Jamil felt that going back to Iraq was something she had to do. And she knew she would be able to return home regularly to Canada to visit her children. “My daughter was 23 and my son was 18,” Jamil says.

“I was divorced. My son and daughter lived with my ex-husband. So everything was OK.”

Back in Iraq, Jamil observed the growing tensions under the American occupation. “I could see people were just watching. Some of them were very happy that they got rid of Saddam Hussein. They cheered Americans. Others were just watching.” As time went on, Jamil witnessed the violence among feuding groups increase and saw many atrocities committed.

“Basically, Iraq turned from a peaceful country with institutions and structures to a lawless, dismantled place. I can’t even call it a country.”

Jamil left her position as a cultural adviser after only four months. “No one was listening,” she says.

Still determined to help, Jamil co-founded a women’s radio station in Baghdad called Radio al-Mahaba. The name means “love” in Arabic.

The only station for women in Iraq, the first broadcast hit the airwaves April 1, 2005. Programs “encourage women to be free and to be assertive, to know their rights and be clear about their rights,” Jamil says.

“The station became so popular,” she adds proudly. “The message became ‘Iraq is one.’ It has to stay united. Women are the power behind any success the country is going to have and if women are not treated well, if women are oppressed, this country will never be anything.”

The show is run mainly by young Iraqi college students. “Many are young women — brave and beautiful. Once the show was up and running, other stations started to compete with us.”

Jamil adds that Radio al-Mahaba is the only independent radio station in Baghdad, financed by advertising and donations. It is not political or run by religious groups or the government. “When we say independent, we really mean independent,” she emphasizes.

More than 10 million Iraqis, mostly women, listen to news and entertainment programs on the station in four languages, including English. Listeners also call in — one of the most popular features of the station — to ask about women’s legal rights, medical concerns and relationship issues. Considering more than 75 per cent of Iraqi women are illiterate, she says, the station provides a vital service.

“One woman listener came to the station during Ramadan and the night-time curfew,” Jamil says. “She came anyway and she fed everyone. She said, ‘You made a difference in my life. I listen to your station all day and think life is OK and there is hope.’”

Programs air 16 hours every day, with male broadcasters working the more dangerous night shift. Jamil says women listeners enjoy the station’s male radio host known as the Love Judge.

“They love what he does because he talks about relationships and love. Men and women call in and they ask questions. They are younger listeners and they feel anonymous. They can ask what they want.”

Considering the daily turmoil that continues in the country, it seems amazing that young Iraqis have love on their minds. “Iraqis are very passionate — very passionate,” Jamil explains. “Love will always be there, despite everything.”

Radio al-Mahaba was on air for only seven months when a massive car bomb targeting a neighbouring hotel destroyed its transmitter and some property. Fortunately, no staff members were hurt, and the station struggled on, its courageous paid and volunteer staff renting a smaller transmitter to keep broadcasting.

Meanwhile, Jamil and others embarked on a successful fundraising campaign in the United States, and the station received a new transmitter from the Harris Corporation and a large sum of money from California-based supporters.

Jamil was also recognized for her efforts as co-founder of the station, and received the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism in 2007 from Women’s eNews, an American journalism outlet.

“We are not popular,” Jamil told a New York audience in 2007, when she accepted the award. “We’ve been rejected. We’ve been fought. Religious groups are not fond of us — not even the American groups there, though we share the same language and the same objective. But we are determined. And we don’t let fear get into our hearts. That was the agreement we made with everybody in the beginning: no fear!”

Jamil focuses her time now on her work as a human rights officer. And she has no plans to quit, despite Iraq’s uncertain future. “I will continue to monitor and report on human rights violations through my job,” she says. “The radio station will keep going unless it is closed by the authorities. I have great hope that the station will be part of the change.”

Despite her current focus on her homeland, Jamil also recognizes her strong bond to her adopted country. “Canada is a great country and we need to keep it like this,” Jamil says.

“I can take my passport and travel anywhere in the world,” she notes, “while my family in Iraq — there is no way they can go do this. I am privileged because I have my Canadian passport and I cherish that.

“Down the road I’ll be back. I’m not going to stay in Iraq forever. I’ll do my job. Then I’ll say, ‘OK, I’ve done my part and I’ll come back.”

Even back in Canada, Jamil’s sense of purpose will not be over. “I want to volunteer — whatever I can do to give back to people.”

Reprinted from “The Canadian Immigrant”, September, 2009

Authentic Delights

by Janet Nicol

When Jordan Bayazit left Turkey almost 30 years ago, the most important item in his suitcase was a candy recipe. Soon after settling in Vancouver in 1981, Bayazit starting making his homeland’s popular bite-sized treats. And now Turkish delights have made Bayazit a sweet success.

“I always loved Turkish delight,” Bayazit says in an interview at his warehouse in Surrey. “When I came here, the Turkish delight I found was bad. It was hard candy.”

And so Bayazit began making his own softer and fresher jelly-like candies, the kind you would find if you visited Turkey and asked for lokoum.

Bayazit’s company, Bayco Confectionery, produces 2,500 pounds of authentic Turkish delight every day, and ships the candies all over Canada and the United States. Even Disney, producers of the movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, fell under the spell of these sugar-powdered cubes. As a result, Bayco manufactures a Narnia-themed box.

Bayazit stands in front of a large computerized machine as he talks. Above, squares of Turkish delight are moving along a conveyor belt, down a tube and into plastic pouches. As the machine seals each pouch, Bayazit retrieves and stacks them.

The friend who gave Bayazit the recipe, a trained Turkish candy maker, warned him making the world’s oldest known candy, dating back to the Ottoman Empire, would not be simple. “It takes years to make well,” Bayazit says. “It took me three to four years to make it acceptable.”

Turkish delight was originally made from ingredients such as dates, honey, roses and jasmine and then bound together by gum Arabic. When sugar was introduced to Turkey in the 1700s, the candy’s flavour became sweeter and more popular. The Turkish people continue to serve the candies after meals to sweeten the breath and alongside coffee to take away its bitter taste.

But making Turkish delight wasn’t how Bayazit had planned his life. He had travelled to England as a young man to study, graduating in engineering.

“I have never worked as an engineer,” Bayazit says with a smile.

After returning to Turkey, Bayazit decided to emigrate permanently. Arriving first to England, Bayazit said his friends suggested he move to Vancouver. “‘You look like a Vancouverite. It’s the best place to live,’ they told me.”

Once in Canada, Bayazit explored the import-export business, but encountered obstacles. His luck changed when he couldn’t find any fresh Turkish delights to eat. That’s when he pulled out his friend’s recipe. He realized he could offer the Canadian market something no one else was.

And so began Bayazit’s niche candy business in 1984, albeit on a much smaller scale, in Richmond. He also made chocolates for about six years, but decided it was not profitable so returned to making only Turkish delights.

Bayazit moved to his larger space in Surrey four years ago and invested in new equipment, as his business continued to grow. The spotlessly clean high-ceilinged room has a dusting of powered sugar on the floor — and even in the bathroom. At the back, two stainless steel pots contain the magical ingredients. Along a side wall, blocks of candy move on a conveyor belt and are cut into cubes by a razor sharp guillotine, as a female employee wearing a hair net stands by. Another female employee carefully packages cubes by hand, layer upon layer, into a large box.

“It’s no secret,” Bayazit says of his recipe. “Sugar, cornstarch, water and cream of tartar.
“I also use rose essence and pure fruit flavours,” he adds.

Besides fruit-flavoured Turkish delights, such as raspberry, lemon, orange, strawberry, peach and blueberry, Bayazit also combines pistachios into the mix.

Bayazit proudly says most of the ingredients are purchased in Canada.

He has a Canadian and American distributor to handle his many customers. “I have almost as many orders in the States as I do in Canada,” he says.

In Vancouver, you can find his candy in bulk food outlets, Purdy’s Chocolates and some Middle Eastern grocers. You can also order Bayco’s Turkish delights from the company website turkish-delight.com.

But Bayazit says he wants to keep the business small — and manageable. “You can’t find my business in the phone book,” he says. Even though Bayazit doesn’t advertise and has enough customers, he says he continuously looks at ways to improve the business. “These pouches are my idea, for example,” he says holding up a 300-gram resealable plastic bag. “Packaging candies in boxes is time-consuming and this is much faster. And the bags are recyclable, too.”

Fortunately, the current downturn in the economy hasn’t affected his business, adds Bayazit. “Candy is recession-proof,” says the husband and father of two adult children. “When times are hard, people want a simple reward.”

For Bayazit, it seems life in Canada is as delightful as his candies.

Reprinted from ‘The Canadian Immigrant’ magazine, May 2009

Next of Gin

A new wave of distillers in the West
is mixing things up with small-batch,
handcrafted modern spirits

By Charlene Rooke and Janet Nicol

Think of everything you know about that most traditional of spirits: the citrusy goodness of a G&T on a summer day. The juniper scent of an icy martini. Now sip rose-scented Victoria from Vancouver Island or fiery 98-proof Junipero from San Francisco. And forget everything you thought you knew.
Western distillers are reinventing gin, both the London dry (crisp and refreshing) and old-fashioned Dutch genever (spicy and smooth) styles. New York cocktail guru David Wondrich has dubbed the result “new Western dry gin.” Ask for these at your favourite local lounge or liquor store.

Victoria Gin
Barking Dog Vineyard, Vancouver Island

WHAT’S IN IT – Ten organic or wild-gathered botanicals (like orris root, cubeb berries, rose petal), some local. Recipe co-creator (with Brian Murray) Ken Winchester says: “The secret ingredient is love.”
How it’s made – Winchester honed his distilling skills at Scotland’s Bruichladdich to create this “gin by a whisky lover.” (The current distiller is Peter Hunt.)

Tasting notes – Smooth, sweetish and dry (thanks to the herb angelica), with a soft, floral and perfumey nose and lots of citrus punch. If you like Hendrick’s Scottish gin, try this with Q organic tonic for a fresh spin.
Available from B.C. liquor stores, victoriagin.com

Phrog Gin
Island Spirits Distillery, Hornby Island

WHAT’S IN IT – Fourteen berries, seeds, roots and spices (like angelica, lemongrass and licorice). Distiller John Grayson says it is distinct for its creation from fruit (not grain) sugars.
How it’s made – Vancouver Island glacier spring water is trucked to the distillery. The aim is to source all ingredients from the two islands. Grayson and business partners (including Peter Kimmerly, captain of the island ferry) spent four years tweaking the recipe.

Tasting notes – Silky smooth. Lightly distributed botanicals give the gin an aromatic character. If you like Straight vodka, drink this neat or with just a splash of spring water.—J.N.
islandspritis.ca

Reprinted (in part) from Western Living, May, 2009

By Janet Nicol

Becoming a de-miner wasn’t Vera Bohle’s career goal after she completed her post-secondary education in Berlin. But when Bohle, aged 36, heard that the Dresden explosives academy offered a training program in land mine clearance, she enrolled.

She was the only woman in her class. After training in 1998, she worked as a de-miner for four years. Now she is an evaluator and technical advisor to disarmament conferences. Over the years she has watched more women don shielded helmets and heavily armored clothes.

Many living in war-ravaged countries need the $760 monthly salary and health benefits that come with this dangerous work. Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) trains and pays local citizens to take out the thousands of deadly mines from the fields and villages of their homes.

The humanitarian group began recruiting females in Kosovo in 1999, breaking the gender barrier of an exclusively male occupation. Money not spent on family is put aside for future dreams–such as a business or education for their children.

But these dreams come with a price, as Saranda Kastrati from Kosovo learned. NPA is supporting her with a new prosthesis because she was injured while clearing mines in Kosovo in 2000.

Using detectors, deminers carefully search and demolish landmines embedded in the farm fields, forests, or outlying land surrounding their homes. In return for their fearless efforts, men and women receive a new-found respect and gratitude from the community.

NPA, founded by Norway’s labor movement in 1939, is a leading group in mine action, and urgently campaigned for an international ban on landmines.

Devout Muslim De-miners

Recently NPA made headlines for initiating the first all-female de-mining team in the Middle East. The Jordanian women, aged 20 to 36, are all devout Muslims and wear a veil. They have been contracted by the NPA, along with 150 men, to remove 136,000 landmines between the border of Jordan and Syria.

Sabah Masaeed, one of the team members to successfully complete the six- week training program, revealed in an interview with “Middle East On-line,” that her father, a Jordanian shepherd, lost a leg several years ago when he stepped on a landmine. So did her uncle.

“I am not afraid to remove the landmines,” Masaeed told Middle East On-line. “And my family has encouraged me to do so. I want to help get rid of this underground danger, which threatens the lives of thousands of people.”

Re-printed from Peace magazine, March, 2009.
(This story also appears in the spring issue of Herizons.)

The Secret Lives of Saints, by Daphne Bramham
Reviewed by Janet Nicol

The Secret Lives of Saints (Daphne Bramham, Random House Canada, Toronto, 2008. 445 pp $32.95 cloth) reveals disturbing truths about a fundamentalist Mormon sect in Bountiful, a community of more than 1,200 people in south-eastern British Columbia. Author Daphne Bramham has frequently expounded on injustices committed toward its residents in her Vancouver Sun columns. Now her book offers the big picture, delivering a compelling story dominated with villains, victims, and apathetic observers.

Much of Bramham’s evidence of wrong-doings is based on testimonies of former residents. She also uses the words of Winston Blackmore, an expelled bishop who continues to lead a faction of sect members, to prove leadership at Bountiful is anything but saintly. Descriptions of similar activities of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) in Utah, Arizona, and Texas are detailed. (The FLDS is not to be confused with mainstream Mormons who oppose multiple marriages.) Bramham repeatedly illustrates how British Columbians are reluctant to protest the Mormon sect’s harmful impact on its women and children, despite the fact polygamy has been illegal since 1890.

Two independent schools at Bountiful—funded by BC taxpayers to the tune of $800,000 annually—enroll an estimated 400 students. Citing annual government inspector reports, the author notes Bountiful Elementary and Secondary School (BESS) has operated in the past with only three out of ten teaching staff holding BC College of Teachers’ certifications.

Blackmore founded Mormon Hills in 2001 and named himself superintendent. But few students from either school graduate from Grade 12. Drop-out rates are high and occur early—girls leave to enter “assigned” marriages as young as 14, and boys, as early as Grade 8, to work in low-wage jobs. Many boys are also cast out of Bountiful by church elders to decrease the ratio of grooms to brides.

The schools profess to follow BC curriculum, yet Bramham argues subject content is distorted or ignored. Religious doctrine prevails on posters, exam questions, and video-taped songs and sermons. Domestic skills are emphasized for female students. A few “trusted” females are encouraged to become nurses, teachers, and midwives so the community can be self-sufficient. All classroom learners are kept insulated from, and in contempt of, the “outside” world.

Bramham compares these human rights violations to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan. She asks: “How is it that two nations, so clear-sighted in recognizing human rights atrocities in other countries and so fearless in taking on tyrannical rulers on the other side of the world, have been so blind to the human rights violations committed against their own women and children?”

Fundamentalist Mormons first settled in the area in the late 1940s. Over the ensuing years, opportunities to take legal action occurred, Bramham observes, including in the 1990s. But provincial NDP Minister Penny Priddy was unable to convince her cabinet colleagues to lay charges against Bountiful’s leaders. “Bountiful is like a sleeping snake,” she told the author. “Everybody takes a stick and pokes at it once in a while.” Priddy cites apathy as the single biggest reason for government inaction.

Four years ago, the BC Teachers’ Federation joined the protest, delivering a petition of teachers’ signatures to the Liberal government. Meantime, BC Attorney General Wally Oppal ordered a two-year RCMP investigation and two independent inquiries. And now he has appointed special prosecutor Terrance Robertson to head a third investigation. Another key breakthrough came in November 2007, when FLDS “prophet” Warren Jeffs was tried and sentenced by an American court to 10 years in prison on two counts of rape as an accomplice. (Jeffs had assigned the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to a 19-year-old male.)

Because of growing public condemnation, Blackmore may be loosening his hold on his multiple wives, children, and followers. Recently he hired three certified teachers at Mormon Hills and he is improving academic standards, according to Audrey Vance, a Creston resident and former school trustee. Vance is one of a dozen members of “Altering Destiny Through Education.”

“Last year 10 of Winston’s students graduated from Homelinks,” Vance said in a telephone interview. (Homelinks is a public education program in Creston.) Vance’s group supports education for Bountiful’s youth, believing learning can be a path out.

In a telephone interview, Bramham says sect elders only want their members to be “minimally educated.” They want the children to have the basics—reading, writing, and math,” she says. Beyond this, leaders discourage higher learning for young people because they are only going to face a life of domestic or manual work. “This also makes it harder to escape,” Bramham adds.

Bramham thinks the Independent School Act needs to be re-written. “Teachers need to meet the basic professional requirements,” she says, “and safeguards to the curriculum need to be added so inspectors have tools to maintain standards.”

But while the wheels of reform and investigation grind slowly, the leaders of Bountiful continue to assign child brides to older men and exploit or “throw away” boys. Airing the “secrets” of the saints, as Bramham does in this book, is a convincing and compassionate step toward change in our own backyard.

Re-printed from BC Teacher magazine, March, 2009.

by Janet Nicol

When University of British Columbia professor Ara Norenzayan entered his second year of university in the United States after emigrating from wartorn Lebanon, he took a course that would change his life.  

The course was psychology.  

“I loved it,” Norenzayan says. “I never looked back.”

And it would help Norenzayan make sense of the violence he witnessed growing up in a Beirut suburb during the 15-year civil war.  

Norenzayan’s wartime experiences combined with his natural curiosity and academic training have now led him to groundbreaking research in a relatively new field — cultural psychology.
“In North America, cultural influences are not visible,” he says. “They are on the margins.”

In the Lebanese mosaic, however, the civil war provided “a confrontation of cultural influences. These influences were in the foreground,” he says.

Growing up within the small Armenian community in Beirut, Norenzayan witnessed good people — both Muslim and Christian — commit terrible acts. In the final months of Lebanon’s civil war, which began in 1975, life in the capital city was so chaotic, schools were forced to close. Norenzayan missed six months of Grade 12 classes. When he emigrated with his family shortly after his final exams, he describes leaving behind a “hellhole.”

Despite the trauma of his past, Norenzayan moved forward, the first in his family to take a scholarly route. Already equipped with three languages, Armenian, Arabic and French, he learned English while taking first-year college courses in Fresno, California.  

And once he found his passion for psychology at California State University, as well as a mentor in his psychology professor, his path was set.

“The doors opened for me,” he says.  

And those doors led to doctorial studies on scholarship at Michigan State University. Norenzayan then spent a year in Paris and came back to teach in the United States, before seeking his current position at UBC.

“I had been to Vancouver and liked it,” Norenzayan says. He also knew colleagues at UBC and was attracted to the opportunities for meaningful research. Last year, he was given tenure at age 36, an impressive accomplishment for someone of his age.

Recently, Norenzayan and his colleagues have been studying how religion affects group behaviour — their approach and ideas compelling and timely.

“It is tragic that we spend so much money on the sciences, but not on the study of cultures, religion and war,” Norenzayan observes. Despite the complexity of his research, Norenzayan also sees simple motives for war.   “Ignorance is at the root,” he says.

After visiting Lebanon during a peaceful interlude, he adds, “It was cathartic and positive.”
With remarkable determination and sheer hard work, Norenzayan has taken the darkest moments of his past to bring light to the present.

 Reprinted from the Canadian Immigrant, January, 2009.

Patterns of Labour and Life

by Janet Nicol

When B.C. artist Sybil Andrews passed by a window of a cafe near her Campbell River home on Vancouver Island, she saw more than four men simply having a cup of coffee. “It made an exciting picture.” 

 So begins an article about printmaker Sybil Andrews (1898 – 1992) in the Winter 2008 issue of “Our Times.”   Andrews’ early artistic and political influences in Britain are recalled, followed by a description of Andrews’ new life after emigrating to Canada with her husband Walter Morgan.   Former art students and community members of Campbell River, active in preserving the Andrews-Morgan home, are also interviewed.  

A small group of people of Mongolian origin meet at the top of Grouse Mountain to celebrate their national holiday every summer, and Barsa Amarsanaa, a college student and hotel employee, is one of them.

He has been attending this annual festival since he immigrated to Vancouver with his mother two years ago. He says if you join the festivities, expect to see them participating in Mongolian “manly sports” — archery and wrestling.

In San Francisco, the city with the largest Mongolian community on the continent, Amarsanaa says they also perform a third sport — horse racing. “The parents race with a child on their back,” he explains with a twinkle in his eye.

Horse racing or not, Amarsanaa says Canadians are curious about his homeland, known as the land of the blue skies. “They think it’s exotic, and they’re right,” he says.

Many also believe Mongolians speak Chinese, so he quickly corrects them on that point. “Mongolians speak Mongolian,” he says proudly.

Amarsanaa comes from the capital city of Ulan Bator, which he says has many modern buildings, busy industry and fashionable people. Dark-haired and handsome himself, Amarsanaa wears a small diamond stud in his left ear.

The capital is a popular tourist destination, he adds, and coming to Canada interrupted his plans with three friends to write a travellers’ guidebook to the city.

Amarsanaa regrets the book never got to print, and it’s not the only thing he sacrificed for Canada. Amarsanaa says he left a lot back in Mongolia — including his girlfriend, grandparents and friends. And the cultural adjustment and language barrier weren’t easy either.
But “life is an exchange,” he says, explaining you lose one thing and gain another. His cell phone suddenly chimes and he takes a look at the call display and turns it off.

Since coming to Canada, Amarsanaa, who lives in Yaletown, has made new friends at school and work. And when Amarsanaa set up a website called Mongolians in Vancouver (vancouvermongolians.com) last year, he started to feel even more connected. The website includes lots of tips on how to adapt to Canadian life.

“My first impression of Canada was really good,” he says. Soon after arriving, he found himself taking a three month work-study course at Immigrant Services Society. “You can study and get paid at the same time,” he said, praising the program. “And then they help you look for full-time work.”

Amarsanaa has worked in a major downtown hotel for a year now. “We Mongolians will do many things,” he says. “I am the front desk clerk, bell hop, waiter and I even cook.”  

Now Amarsanaa, who originally wanted a career in software engineering, thinks he will pursue hotel management — something he had never planned.  

“I am living by the wind of life,” he says.

Reprinted from Canadian Immigrant magazine, November 2008