Saturday, May 28th.
I
think to myself it is an adventure since I am going to Ottawa in
someone’s car I do not know, and staying in a hostel with people I have
not met. I use the service on internet, “ridesharing”. Ridesharing is
like hitchhiking, except that it is posted on the internet, and the
price is settled before going. He says his name is Kavi, and we are
meeting in Scarborough Town Centre. I decide to put everything I need in
a backpack and leave for the trip. I know I will be seeing some
historical buildings, the parliament, and the Ottawa River and visiting
friends in Ottawa. At this time I am not sure, where I am staying, and
how long.
Sunday, May 30th.
I sit in the Kavi’s car
in Scarborough Town Center. He tells me to put my backpack in the
trunk, and I am little worried, should I really do it, what if he goes,
and leaves me behind. I just trusted him, I put my backpack in the
trunk. Kavi is a Sri-Lankan-Canadian, a software engineer, who travels
often between Ottawa and Toronto. We had long chat about many topics:
politics in Canada, ethnic nationalism in the old countries we come
from, and life in immigrant communities in Canada. It amazes me to see
the vastness of Canada, the two inches of distance from Toronto and
Ottawa is connected with cities, I have not heard; numerous farms and
fields.
In Ottawa, I am welcomed by my friends Ali,
Maysam, and Nazira. We have coffee in the Second Cup in a beautiful
space in the University of Ottawa. We talk about the subjects we study
in University, politics and history in Afghanistan. Ali and Maysam are
the generations of Afghanistanis who are born in an instable
Afghanistan, but have managed to get education, and get scholarship to
study in Canada. They are both finishing their masters. It makes me
ever hopeful that best minds like Ali and Maysam can compete with the
great minds in the world. They are Afghanistan’s answer to the questions
of the world.
Tonight, I am staying in Backpackers Inn. I get a bed for $29 a night. I am still thinking how long to stay.
Tuesday, May 31.
Today I decide that I will stay in Ottawa for a week instead of two nights.
It
is a very hot day, and I go to visit a friend Inayat, who lives in
Gatineau, on the other bank of Ottawa River. They prepared a lot of good
food for dinner, and they were generous to let me stay the night there.
Inayat has three children; the oldest is three year old and youngest is
about a year. I think about the difficulty of raising children as a
nuclear family in North America. The children do not get to see
grandparents, aunts and uncles; cousins and nephews; neighbourhood and
community. I was lucky to be born in a small town with an extended
family and other children to play with.
Wednesday, June 1st
Ali
and Maysam come and we go for a bike ride from the Rideau Canal, and go
around the Ottawa River, and after we are very tired we go to the
Indian buffet to eat. There we talked about different ideology, about
traditions in Afghani community in Toronto and Ottawa. The restaurant
closed and we took our discussions to the Second Cup. We talked until
the Second Cup closed too.
After that, Maysam leave
for home, and Ehsan and Hamid come and we including Ali drive to a
Middle Eastern Restaurant and have tea and play cards till very late in
the night and early morning.
Thursday, June 2nd
I go
the tour of University of Ottawa, and in the afternoon go to the Museum
of Civilizations. There I am so tired that I cannot move I just sit on a
chair and cannot move, and almost sleep. I watched the performances by
native people of Canada. There were great aboriginal music and dance.
Friday, June 3rd
I
go to the Bytown Museum. It is a very small museum by the Rideau
Canal, and it is one of the oldest Stone buildings in Ottawa, it was
made as storage house when the Canal was being built in 1836. The museum
is about the Canal. Rideau Canal is the only world heritage site in
Ontario. At its time it was the biggest public project of its kind by
the British government. It took two thousand workers to finish the
canal. The canal was built by the British to protect the Northern
colonies of Canada against the Southern Americans invasion. The canal
connects Ottawa with Kingston. The canal was supposed to provide a
protective measure or supply place for the big cities of Montreal and
Kingston. Today, the canal is used for the tourist ships. The history of
canal is very much connected to the history of Ottawa and why she
becomes the capital. The museum attendant, a young woman tells me, that
it is because of the canal that Ottawa become the capital of Canada.
Then, there I ask her a question, and she brings me a book and says if
you read this book you will find the answer to your questions. I do not
take the book but thank her.
Saturday, June 4th
I am
lucky it is Open Doors Ottawa that means most of the places will be
open for me to visit. In the morning, I go to visit the Delegation of
Imamat Centre that has quite interesting architecture. It is all
transparent, the roof is made up of glass and one can see between the
walls. The color of the walls, floor and door is all white that has
interesting effect on the person. They have also courtyard with garden
that is called the Chahar Bagh, modelled after the garden of paradise
“the garden beneath which river flows”.
From there, I
walk and pass-by the American Embassy that is on the same street. It is
also one of the buildings that have its doors open to the public for
that day. On the other hand, to get in, one must have registered online.
I see a big line-up in front of the doors of American embassy. There
are several different kinds of barriers to get into the building. To get
in, one need wait in line, open the heavy doors made-up of metal and
glass, and pass the security officers.
I also visit the Supreme Court of Canada and the Conference Center.
Sunday, June 5th.
I
go the National Art Gallery. There is good collection of Inuit,
Canadian, and International artists. My favourite is a work by a
Canadian artist Bourgeois; it is “the giant cell”. Bourgeois made this
in the last years of her life. It is a metal cell or cage the size of a
small bedroom. In the middle of it is a staircase going up and out of
the cage. There are two big wooden balls on the floor of the cage
representing the artist’s parents. There is a tear drop suspended in the
middle of the cage that is attached by needles to the walls of the cage
with threads; representing artist’s self or any individual attached to
the world of materials. The staircase moving up from the cage in circles
shows the spiritual enlightenment of a person or ascendance into the
heaven or the spiritual sphere. It is all my interpretations of the
sculpture based on the objects.
On this last day in
Ottawa, I meet Maysam in the evening in the same Second Cup and talk
about our family, growing up, and the future paths. After, I meet Nazira
and I have dinner in the Shawarma palace, and we walk and talk in the
beautiful Ottawa night.
Monday, June 6th.
I
rideshare with a Sikh Indian-Canadian man, co-incidentally another
software engineer, giving me a ride to Toronto. There is an Ottawa born
painter who is a music fan and college student ridesharing with us. We
go towards Toronto talking about religion, music, apocalypse, and
ridesharing. They all have wonderful stories to tell that makes all the
ridesharing all the more entertaining.
by
Barakat Rastgar (
Notes) on Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 3:08am
