OUTREMONT ON A BUDGET
Bargain flat near Park Avenue
Zahra Taieh would like to launch her professional career — the sooner the better.
Taieh left her native Iran at the relatively youthful age of 22 and since then she has been studying, gaining a slew of degrees in political and social sciences and in urban development, first at the University of Genoa in Italy, then at Université de Provence in France and later at Université Paris Diderot. Taieh, who is still a part-time student, speaks five languages — Farsi, French, English, Italian and Arabic. She is currently finishing a post-doctorate degree in sociology at Université de Montréal, specializing in social movements like the Arab Spring. But now, she says, it’s time to find a job.
Taieh came to Canada through the skilled immigrant program and has been granted permanent residency status. She can become a citizen in two years. Being a permanent resident is one thing. Finding a full-time job is quite another.
In spite of her language skills and academic achievements, like many new immigrants, when it comes to finding a job, she has been hitting the brick wall of needing “Canadian experience.”
That is precisely what she is trying to do.
Taieh, who is 30 years old, has been keeping herself busy, co-ordinating fundraising at MP Marc Garneau’s Montreal office and serving on a political committee for Projet Montréal. Because these positions pay very little (or nothing at all), when it came to finding an apartment, Taieh knew she had to stay within a very limited budget. She started searching the Kijiji website and, as luck would have it, found a one-bedroom basement apartment, a stone’s throw from Park Avenue in Outremont, for only $740 per month.
Q: Outremont is a pretty expensive area! Did you know that before you started looking? A: Actually, I didn’t know much about Outremont at all. I’d heard of Westmount, and I knew that was expensive. I just wanted to live somewhere close to downtown, so it wouldn’t take too long to get to the university. From here I can take the 51 or 129 bus and it takes me straight to the campus.
Now that I’ve been here for a while, I really love the area. On Avenue du Parc there are lots of grocery stores, restaurants, the park, interesting little shops. C’est vivant!
Q: Was the apartment furnished? A: Partly. The rug was here, but I had to pay to have it cleaned.
( She indicates the pink carpet on the hardwood floor. The all-in-one living room and kitchen is fairly dark. The apartment has only two small windows, but the rug, which has a green and blue floral design, provides a splash of colour, as do two plump loveseats covered in a
grey-green, patterned upholstery.)
Q: I thought your rug might have come from Iran? A: No, but I do have a beautiful rug there which I had to leave behind. (She whips out her cellphone and scrolls across the photos on her screen to show it to me.) I brought this kilim, which is under the table, because it was small enough to roll up. When
you immigrate to Canada, you’re allowed to bring more luggage than “regular” people.
Q: What other things were in the apartment? A: There wasn’t much, so the owner of the building gave me the two loveseats. He also provided me with my bed and some of the display shelves. I also bought some stuff in Winners and in La Baie. Some things, like my reading lamps, came from Meubles Linton, which is just around the corner.
(We walk into her bedroom, which is decorated in black and white. On the floor is an imitation zebra-skin rug. A white makeup table, topped by an oval mirror, stands against the wall. To the left of it is a black, open bookshelf with a couple of ornaments, a lamp with a stainless steel and glass stem and over a dozen perfume bottles, all shapes and sizes.)
Q: You certainly have a lot of fancy bottles! A: (Laughs.) Well, you know, I lived in France, so I bought a lot of perfume.
Q: If you don’t find a job in Montreal, will you move somewhere else? A: I have to earn some money to live on or I might be forced to return to Iran. I don’t want to do that. It’s a very difficult place, especially for women. We are intelligent. We are hard working. But right now, there is no real place for us in Iranian society.
Besides, I love Montreal. It’s cultural. It’s alive. People discuss politics and that is my passion!