Syrian farmer tills life in new country
War sowed the bitter harvest of exodus for Syrian farmer Mohamed El Daher and his then-new wife.
But the wiry El Daher hopes his love of tilling the soil will help root his family in a new country he so emphatically embraces.
“Everything is good because my children are very, very happy. … It is beautiful,” says El Daher, as his trio of kids, aged three to six, scamper about their rental house.
When his family of five arrived in Calgary a year ago, El Daher wasted little time in plowing under the lawn in the backyard of his Ranchlands home, planting vegetables among the furrows.
More recently, the Syrian Refugees Support Group Calgary connected him to Abdullah Chybli, whose parents hail from Lebanon and Syria. Chybli has lent El Daher 1.2 hectares of farmland northeast of the city, so El Daher can grow a firmer financial footing. El Daher’s enthusiasm for farming seemed genuine and the farmland seemed fertile ground to help a refugee adapt and contribute, said Chybli.
El Daher, 39, has already purchased a small, decades-old tractor to work what’s become a field of dreams for the family that fled its home in the city of Hama shortly after the Syrian war began.
“Everything went bad because of the war — for children, babies it’s no good,” says El Daher, who still has extended family back in Syria with whom he’s in contact. “Some days are bad for them, some days good,” he notes. El Daher is relieved to be in a peaceful country and has no plans to return, especially because his children are happy here.
However, the benefits of the El Daher family’s one-year sponsorship hybrid, from the federal government and auditing giant KPMG, expired in June. And vegetables take time to mature into a cash crop. “I need work,” says El Daher in halting English.
A job carrying on his other profession as a construction plasterer would mean a more stable income, he said, which is essential since a fourth child is on the way.
But El Daher adds he’s upbeat about his prospects and a plan that some of the food he’ll harvest from his backyard and farm field plots can be given to the needy as a sign of gratitude to Canada. “The government gave me money, so I will plant to give free to people,” he says.
When he’s not attending English classes at Bow Valley College, El Daher is tending to his vegetables. Next year, the plan is to be a commercial organic farmer, said El Daher, as he inspects baby sprouts of peppers and beans emerging from his sloping backyard.