Winter warning for newcomers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/01/2017 (3198 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Fleeing Eritrea through Sudan, and across the desert to Libya, Daniel Semere knows the dangers of extreme heat. Now the refugee, who has resettled in Winnipeg, knows the dangers of extreme cold.

“Before coming here, I tried hard to imagine what -20 or -30 feels like,” said Semere, who arrived in Canada in April from Malta in the mild Mediterranean. Eight months later, he’s waded through thigh-high snow during his first blizzard to get to work, survived his first arctic cold snap and bought a good parka with a hood at a Boxing Day sale and warm boots at Value Village.

“Now that I am here, feeling it — oh boy! It is really cold!”

Already this winter, wind chill values have dropped to levels that will freeze flesh in minutes. Snowfall amounts are burying records and more snow and a brutal wind chill are expected this week in southern Manitoba.

That’s why the resettlement director for Hospitality House Refugee Ministry won’t let newcomers who arrive in winter pick out a coat without a hood or boots that don’t have proper insulation.

“I’m always taking people out to get warm winter clothing,” said Karin Gordon, a grandmother who went to work for the charity after retiring from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. “I tell them — especially the young women who want something form-fitting and very attractive — that ‘That’s not going to be warm enough.’” Gordon said she explains to newcomers that during Winnipeg winters “everyone looks the same” — bulky and bundled up. “They’re happy and they’re warm,” she tells them.

“I won’t let them get coats without hoods and collars that don’t zip right up,” said Gordon.

The non-profit charity receives no government funding and Gordon takes the privately sponsored refugees to thrift stores to outfit them for winter. “I’m always telling people, especially men, ‘You don’t want to wear a coat that’s waist-length — you’ve got tender bits that will freeze. I tell them ‘I’m old enough to be your mother or grandmother,’” and they listen. She’s adamant newcomers know they’ve got to be bundled up for good reason.

At this time two years ago, when it was -33, a 17-year-old girl from Ethiopia whose family had recently arrived in Canada got lost on her way home from Elmwood High School. She was dressed for the weather, took shelter in an unoccupied home and was safely returned to her parents late the next day.

Not every newcomer to Winnipeg who gets lost in winter survives unscathed.

“We had one terrible episode,” said Gordon. Four years ago, during -30 weather in January, she helped a large family from an East African country get resettled. “I had worked very hard to get warm clothing for them. They had everything they needed.” Before the children started school, she’d driven the father past it several times to make sure he knew where it was in relation to their home. Two of the kids had autism and he’d be walking them to school.

Before they could start classes, the children, their dad and Gordon were to meet with the principal and specialists at the school to see what assistance the kids would need.

On that bitterly cold day two weeks after the family arrived in Canada, Gordon’s power steering hose broke. She called the family from the repair shop to say she’d be late. There was no answer. She called the school, but the family hadn’t showed up. The school’s vice-principal and Gordon drove around the neighbourhood in their vehicles until they found them.

‘Now that I am here, feeling it — oh boy! It is really cold!’

“The father had decided to walk to school and he got lost,” she said. “They had been outside for a long time. One of the boys had taken off his mittens and the father took his hand and held it in his. His other hand was waving around with bare skin,” she said. The boy suffered frostbite and lost skin on that hand. “It was a very severe injury,” she said.

“That was a real wake-up call for me. The boy was disabled and injured and the father was in tears, and they had only been in the country for two weeks.”

She tells recent arrivals the story to illustrate the danger of the cold. Newcomers eventually get used to it, said Gordon, who has seen proof of that in the large group of Somali orphans who’ve been living at the Hospitality House residence with her for most of the past year. “One of the kids went out when it was -8 and said, ‘It’s warm today.’ I said ‘Now you’re talking like a Canadian.’”

For Semere, who speaks four languages and has used them all at his front-desk job at the Hampton Inn by the airport, the warm welcome he’s felt since arriving in Manitoba more than makes up for the cold.

“The one question everybody keeps asking me since the first day I came here is ‘What made you come to Winnipeg?’ The answer is simple — a sense of belonging and inclusiveness. Definitely not the winter and snow.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca