Sense of a new place

BY Zohreh Haghbin

Some people think about leaving the land of their birth because they have feelings that are hard to explain. They feel lost and unsure about belonging in their homeland. They may decide, one day, to leave their comfort zone, to experience a new sense of place.

For me, it started in August, 2021. I gave up on trying to love my hometown. I left my career in book publishing to become an international student, to search for the place I truly belonged.

Flying over Tehran, the city where I’d spent most of my life, I felt almost nothing. As I boarded the next flight, I thought I should be missing home, but I only felt empty. When I finally landed on the North Shore, thousands of miles from home, I didn’t know if I would ever find that lost sense of place – somewhere to call home.

I once read that the search for discovery starts in unknown places. During those first

Continued from page 4 ceeding my high expectations. We sang, danced, played games and learned to play instruments. My daughter was captivated and, after enjoying all six classes, she wanted to sign up for the next term.

Orff Kodaly music classes are based on the philosophies of Carl Orff and Zoltan Kodaly. This is a great foundation for chil- few months in Canada, I struggled to find people to share my thoughts with. I was just another voice in a place with a past I knew nothing about.

Some places are easy to connect with, but this time it seemed different. I walked for hours, looking for anything that would remind me of home.

Lonsdale was similar to my old neighbourhood with its shops, families strolling the sidewalks, cars and buses passing, and views of the mountains.

During one of those walks, a sign caught my eye: MONOVA.

To connect to a new place, you need to know about its past, to discover the stories of its places and people. And MONOVA: Museum of North Vancouver is the place to experience that. It became my safe place.

Volunteering at the Museum of North Vancouver introduced me to a programme called New Voices. This is a 16-week programme for newcomers to work together on developing a community exhibit. Here, I found the opportunity to use my experi- dren to develop social, language, cognitive, emotional, and music skills. ence and passion for culture within a team to engage and welcome a more diverse range of North Shore communities to the museum and find answers to the questions I had left my home for.

The Kodaly Orff class at West Vancouver Library is free and supported by the estate of Robert Leslie Welsh through the West Vancouver Memorial Library Foundation. Registration and information can be found at westvanlibrary.ca under events & programs.

A team of seven enthusiastic volunteers from different cultures and backgrounds have been working on various themes. Sense of a new place was the theme I chose.

The first part of the project is an oral history interview with my professor, Dr. Eli Konorti. A previous North Shore resident, he was once a newcomer in this place, and he has stories to tell. We conducted and recorded the interview at the Archives of North Vancouver. Capturing a photograph with the essence of my theme is a second part of the project, and the countdown for the opening of our team exhibition has begun.

After months of working on this project, I realized that I belong to my homeland more than I thought possible. And, while searching for answers, I have become attached to this new place I’ve chosen – the North Shore.

All seven of us on the team have found the “thing” we were looking for. And we want to share it with the rest of the community. We no longer feel like unknown voices. We are new voices.

The “Voices of Diversity” exhibition is open to the public from February 20 to March 5 at the Museum of North Vancouver (115 West Esplanade). Following that, you can visit it at the Archives of North Vancouver (3203 Institute Road) from March 13 to July 28.

The New Voices volunteer programme is generously supported by the Kitty Heller Memorial Fund, held at Vancouver Foundation, Deux Mille Foundation and Lohn Foundation.