Editor’s Note:
The following are letters written by local school children to the five young members of the Almastou family who will be immigrating to Revelstoke hopefully next year from the Jordanian refugees cap where they have been for the last almost four years.
Dear Syrian family,
I hope you will have fun in Revelstoke.
Welcome to Revelstoke!
I am writing this letter because I thought you would like some suggestions about what to do in Revelstoke in summer and in winter.
I can tell you why Revelstoke is a good place to stay. There is no crime here ever, and everybody is nice here. I have seen only one angry person so far.
There are really nice people here and also lovely food. Our food might taste different from the food you eat, but our food is delicious, too. My favourite food is lasagne.
We have the best beach at Williamsons Lake, because there is not much seaweed. You can go hiking, too. My favourite places are: the beach, the ski hill, the pool and my home. I can teach you downhill skiing and how to swim, but you can also sign up for lessons.
Our school, Begbie View Elementary is full of nice people. I hope you’ll be in my class.
Good-bye, and I hope you’ll have a great life in Canada!
Tucker
***
Dear new friend,
My name is Rosetta. I am writing this letter because it’s fun and I want you to feel welcome.
I like swimming. If we meet I can take you to the pool. There are lots of campgrounds. There is lots to do, like dirt biking, snowmobiling, mountain biking and lots more. There is an Enchanted Forest with Sky Trek adventure park. Lots of bands come play here music. Lots of nice kids you will get to meet. Some more fun things to do are hiking and climbing. Revelstoke is a great place. There are animals, like deer, bugs, and crows. I go to Begbie View school. I like to go boating. Every town has a story to tell. Along your trails of mountain parks or on the streets you’ll discover wonderful attractions and adventures.
I hope to see you at my school. I am 11 years old and in a great school.
See you soon,
Rosetta Bloom
***
Dear Friend,
I heard you were coming to Revelstoke. Here in Revelstoke we have the most beautiful view of the mountains, rivers and trees. My favourite place to go in Revelstoke is swimming at the lake that my dad and I found last summer.
I also really like hiking. My mom and my brothers and I every Sunday in summer we hike the 5-km loop. It is so fun. We have beautiful nature. When you get here all you will want to do is look at the nature.
We have a really nice community; there is no war at all. I think that is really good.
Around Revelstoke there are some hot springs. We have one that is really nice, but you have to pay. But you can visit another one, where you have to hike 5 km and then you get to this beautiful lake. Some parts are cold, but most of the water is warm. It’s all natural, there is no chlorine or anything that is bad for your skin.
You can also go biking on the mountain bike trails. It is so fun. If you don’t know how to ride a bike, someone can teach you. There are lots of trails to go on. You’ll see a lot of wildlife, like deer, rabbits, and bears. But they don’t hurt, just don’t pet them, or bad thing will happen!
There are a lot of restaurants. My favourite place to eat is Kawakubo, because I love sushi, but most of my friends don’t. I am not sure if you have ever eaten sushi. It is really good.
We don’t poisonous snakes or any of the animals you have at home.
Good bye! I hope you are coming here soon!
Octavia
***
Dear Syrian refugees,
Welcome to Revelstoke!
I am writing this letter because I heard that you are coming to Revelstoke and I want you to know what Revelstoke looks like.
Revelstoke is in British Columbia, Canada. It’s beautiful and it has amazing views. We have forests and lots of animals: we have deer, bears, elk, grizzly bears, squirrels, chipmunks, and racoons. Sometimes bears come to town, but just don’t go near them!
My favourite places in Revelstoke: my favourite restaurant is the Village Idiot Bar and Grill, because it has really good pizza. My favourite place to go and have fun is Sky Trek, where you can try the zip line.
When you are here, I can show you the swimming pool. There is a lot of stuff that you and your family can do there: there is a water slide, a hot tub, a sauna, a lazy river, and a baby pool.
In Revelstoke a lot of people ride bikes. Riding bikes is safe in Revelstoke, because we don’t have a lot of traffic.
My school is really fun, because we do interesting things, for example now we are making kites. We do Math, P.E., Language Arts, French, Music, Science and Socials. My favourite subject is P.E., because we get to run around and play games.
I hope to see you soon!
John
***
Dear Syrian Refugees,
Hey, I heard that you guys were coming to Revelstoke! I’m pretty excited that you guys are coming to this town! Revelstoke is a pretty cool town and there are no wars and a lot of people are nice and friendly! I hope that you guys have a good time here in Revelstoke. We have skiing, roller coasters, tubing, restaurants and stores! We have a ton of houses to choose from and I hope you are my neighbour! We get a lot of snow here, but every year we get less and less snow! Anyways, I hope to see you in town.
E.T.
P.S. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Where you guys lived you probably didn’t have much water and food, but we have lots of water and food. And we don’t have wars!
***
Dear Friend,
I hope that you are coming to Revelstoke soon. Let me tell you about Revelstoke.
There are nice people here. A lot of athletic people live in Revelstoke, they go skiing a lot and they ride their bikes in the summertime.
I think that you might like it here, because there are good restaurants, like Zala’s, Emo’s, the Village Idiot and New Manning’s. I like sushi, Chinese food and pizza.
My favourite places in Revelstoke are going dirt biking with my dad, going to the bowling alley and mountain biking. There is a big ski resort where you can also go tubing. There are big, inflatable tubes that you take up on a little escalator, and then there are two different kinds of hills that you can go down.
Some things that I do in school are Math, P.E., Language Arts, Fine Arts, Social Studies and Science. On Fridays we have Assembly for the whole school, we also have Computers, Music, French, Reading, and Library on Mondays. I’m writing this letter because I want you to know what some of the things are that we have in Revelstoke.
Can’t wait to see you when you come to Revelstoke. I want you to have so much fun when you come here there are a lot of things that you will like.
See you soon,
Avia
