Kissing Away the Difference

It would be an understatement to say that it’s hard for a first year at Queen’s to cope with being away from home. But soon enough, the definition of home becomes a person, a dorm, a house, a country, a sense of safety, or even a classroom. As I’ve found all of these spaces in one word, I still feel like a stranger in Canada. As much as I’ve developed an everlasting love for Queen’s culture, my heart belongs somewhere else, the Middle East.

On my plane ride from Jordan to Toronto, I made a list of the things I couldn’t say goodbye to. The white ornamented house, the cold breeze that hit you to the bone, the Arabic language, the view of the thousands of houses on the hillsides, the sound of my brother playing Minecraft at six in the morning before school, the loud music from my sister’s room, the smell of my father’s burning cigars and my mother’s warm touch. It’s an endless list of things that make the “good” in “goodbye” completely pointless. No matter how ready I was to leave, I couldn’t wrap my head around the thought of traveling across the globe to an unknown place full of uncertainties. I came from a sheltered world and made the best of it thanks to the amount of love and comfort I received. There is no other place I would rather call home than Jordan. It gave my family and I something our country of origin, Iraq, couldn’t. I can’t emphasize enough the pain you endure when you realize your home can no longer be your home. It was beyond our control, and there was nothing anyone could do about the war in Iraq, all we could do was cope with it and pray that our windows wouldn’t be the next to shatter. After the mourning and self-loathing experienced from leaving our country behind, we found peace and everlasting salvation in Jordan.

Through time, Queen’s became a new haven. I found a state of relief from the people around me. I slowly started regaining my breath after realizing my new home welcomed me with open arms. However, it was a struggle to keep my pillow dry at night. Although accepted within the community, I couldn’t help but feel like a stranger. I was born and raised in a different world with different values, yet I had several experiences that helped me keep an open mind. From all that I have seen in my life, I still felt like a naïve and scared little girl whenever I walked down University Avenue. It was hard to process everything that I was experiencing all at once, and whenever I looked around, it felt as though I was the only one pacing my steps and counting houses to remain calm and collected.

Soon, I realized that the fear I held was slowly becoming a reality. Even though people accepted my values at Queen’s, I couldn’t help but compare my country’s culture to the Canadian. It’s the little things that differ between Jordan and Canada. The streets, the traffic, the stores, the people, the weather, I could go on forever from the political status to the way people pronounce my name. I didn’t think any of these aspects would affect the comfort of my stay here. Before coming to Canada, I’d been told that I’d miss Jordan once I left and I would likely become homesick—which is a given cliché—but the pain wasn’t a cliché, and neither was the loneliness that came with it. Even though people respected my values, I was still torn between both cultures—from the way of living and eating, the politics, the driving, to the values of sex. I couldn’t find a balance between the two cultures. I adopted an open-minded perspective, yet maintained certain Islamic views. So it’s an understatement to say that both cultures affected my identity, but the differences were so drastic I was left feeling completely torn. As much as I wanted to find the best of both worlds, I became aware that it’s going to take a lot more confusion, tears, and pain to find ease. And I finally made peace with that.

an article by Hareer Al-Qaragolie