The search for an apartment in Quebec continues! It’s been a ride with lots of curves in the road and along the way we’ve been able to learn quite a few little cultural tid bits. One obvious challenge has been the language barrier. Half of the landlords we call don’t seem to speak a word of English. Darcy & Liz Dueck are NTM missionaries who just started working in the office here at NTMC. They recently returned from Guinea and so Darcy has been able to help me out by making phone calls for me and being my translator. Initially all of the apartments that I called about had no vacancy and Darcy quickly clued me into the reason for that. In Quebec, July 1st is called ‘Moving Day‘. Moving Day involves a Quebec law where all leases must start on that day, this means that on July 1st over 4% of the population of Quebec is moving! Some joke that Moving Day is propelled by separatists and intended to distract Quebecers from celebrating Canada Day. The law originated hundreds of years ago and was meant to protect tenants from being evicted during the harsh winters. What this means for us is that right now hardly anyone is moving! Darcy says that our best bet is to wait until June when people begin to end their lease agreements and think about moving. It’s been exciting to begin to learn this new culture. Keep praying for us as we look to God to provide housing for our French Study this fall.
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I remember looking for a place to live in quebec while I was there on a co-op work term. I also had the language barrier issue, which was only solved by walking around in the area that I wanted to live and knocking on doors to apartment building to talk to people there. I hope you have better luck and find a great place to live.
Katie