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Their apartment is strikingly bare, but Shikh Omar Jalal, his wife, Eman Aarabi, and their five children feel comfortable in their new home on Donald Street. They’re nestled among about 400 other Syrian refugees who have recently moved into two apartment towers just north of St. Laurent shopping centre.

They’ve made friends, and get regular news from back home. The only drawback to life on Donald Street is, they admit, it might be difficult to learn English when surrounded by Arab speakers. “No English around!” says a laughing Aarabi, whose bubbly laughter is never far from the surface.

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The family has found some things difficult to figure out. The three oldest kids — Hala, 11, Eman, 9, and Jona, 5, — watched for weeks as other children hopped on a yellow bus each morning. The kids begged to go, too, but the school system remained a mystery for the family.

Like most of the refugees living on Donald, the family was brought to Canada by the federal government as part of the massive resettlement effort that moved 25,000 Syrians into the country between November and the end of February. They were housed in a downtown Ottawa hotel for a month. Settlement officers from the Catholic Centre for Immigrants helped them select an apartment and provided the furniture. The Donald Street highrises were a popular choice because the landlord set aside 150 units for Syrian refugees and offered a break on rent.