Dominique Michaud, my colleague

Quebec is a province where there are a lot of immigrants. They are mostly in Montreal, known to be a multicultural city with a lot of activities and festivals from different cultures. Here in Rimouski, we don't have a lot of ethnic groups yet, but more and more have been coming over the years. Just like my colleague, Dominique Michaud, she is an immigrant from Reunion Island, she is 29 years old and she arrived in Quebec 6 years ago.

She came to study in Quebec because life here was better and, in Matane, there was a multimedia program that really interested her. She moved to Rimouski to be with her fiancé and she now has a little girl of 3 years old. The first thing she noticed of Quebec was the weather, in the Reunion Island, there is snow but like once every 5 years, so, when she saw the big amount of snow that we had she was pretty shocked. She is still not used to the cold, she always wears too much clothes until it's 15° outside.

She really likes Quebec and its people, she wants to have the same accent that we have, but unfortunately for her, she still has her accent from Reunion Island. She adapted well to our style of life, even if sometimes, she still has difficulties to understand us when we talk too fast or when we talk with a really strong accent. Last time, when she was cold, I told her that she should buy a “casque de poil”, but with my accent it sounded more like “cass de poual” and she didn't know what it was until I described it to her, she calls it a “chapeau russe”. It is a really popular expression here in Quebec and even after 6 years here she didn't know it. Except from the cold and the language, I believe that she is well adapted to Quebec.

She will take the exam to be a Canadian citizen in a few days and she needs to study all of our history. After that, it will make it obvious that she is well adapted to Quebec.