Article content continued

Despite living conditions she describes as “very, very tough,” the family took comfort in the fact that they were still close to their home country.

“You have that feeling that at any moment you’re going to go back to Syria,” she explains.

Most of the children, except for the oldest daughter, were so young when they left Syria that they don’t remember their country, describing Lebanon as where they are from.

The kids have happily made Calgary their new home, glad to have activities in school to keep them busy — a far cry from the refugee camps they lived in for so long.

They are learning English, and have made friends with both Canadian children and other Syrians in the complex where they live.

Al-Rajab says some of the highlights of coming to Canada, aside from the children being happy in school, include the fact that the houses are much nicer, and that “the places in general are very beautiful.”

She has also made friends with other Syrian women in the neighbourhood, and she has gone from being worried to take the CTrain on her own when she first arrived, to finding her way around easily. If she goes somewhere once, she remembers the route.

Above all, it is much safer here.

Photo by Leah Hennel / Postmedia

But settlement remains a major hurdle for the mother, who admits that if her husband were still alive, “life would be much easier.”

She misses her family, and sometimes thinks about going to Jordan to see her mother, who lives there with some of al-Rajab’s siblings. Since arriving in Canada, al-Rajab has been confronted with grief once again, this time after losing a sister in Lebanon to cancer.