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A Bakery in Montreal, Minus Thirty Outside
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Show notes
Firas, Homs to Montreal
Firas baked in his father's shop in Homs until the war closed it. After three years in Lebanon and a resettlement interview he can still recite, he landed in Montreal in January 2016 with a wife, two children and no French. Today he runs a bakery on Rue Jean-Talon.
- The resettlement process from the inside
- Night classes in French while working days in a warehouse
- The small-business loan that took four attempts
- Why his manakish has a Quebec maple version now
- The elderly customer who recognised the smell of his father's bread
Recorded in the bakery before opening, with the ovens going. Firas says the queue moves faster than it looks.
Transcript
Hello, I am Tolu Adebanjo and you are listening to Two Suitcases and a Visa. My guest this week bakes bread at four in the morning in a city where it is minus thirty outside, and he says that is the easy part. Firas ran a bakery in Homs with his father until 2013. He spent three years in Lebanon, sat through a resettlement interview he can still recite word for word, and landed in Montreal in January with two children and not one word of French. Today his shop on Rue Jean-Talon has a queue on Saturday mornings. We talk about night classes, a loan that took four attempts, a maple manakish that his Syrian friends still argue about, and the customer who walked in, smelled the bread and started crying. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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