Mr. Del Maestro

The person that I interviewed is the neighbour of my grandparents living in Montreal-Nord. I know him ever since I can remember. Mr. Del Maestro is the stereotype of the old Italian guy, complaining  all the time, talking loudly with a thick accent and lots of gestures. Last week I called my grandparents to get his phone number and to inform him that I would call. Even if time caught up with him (he's 91 now) and is often confused, he seemed very happy to talk to me again, since he saw me growing up.

He told me that he left Ladispoli, in Italy after World War II with his wife and moved to Montreal-Nord in 1953 and he has been neighbour with my grandparents ever since. They chose Montreal because many other Italians had already moved there. He worked very hard his entire life in the construction industry like many other Italians. They found it hard at first to get used to our American lifestyle and they often had the nostalgia of the Mediterranean way of life, were they lived from fishing and their garden, everyone of their village sharing everything and coming over for supper. The air was very different, ''it's very stinky in Canada, I miss the smell of the sea and gardens'', he told me. As for our food, he ain't a big fan. He told me that everything was flavourless, and fortunately there was the Petit Italie in Montreal where he could buy decent food. Then he ranted over almost everything, the weather, the government, prices, today's youth and the new priest for the parish in a strange French-Italian dialect. After a while he told me that despite all this he was happy here. The Quebecois are ''bon vivants'' and the life along other retired persons what nice, he could give time to his flower and squabble over the news with my grandfather on the balcony.

Before he had to hang up he told me that he appreciated that, like in Italy, the family was very important to us, then he thanked me for the call I made the promise that I would come see his flowers next time I go back to Montreal.

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

Two months have past since the strike has been voted. Back then, I had no idea that it could grow to the events of the past week.

I was against the strike. I was against not because I want an augmentation of the tuition fees, like lots of people may think. I would love that the tuition fees would not increase, but I know that it is not possible .

That does not mean that the strike was useless. I embraced the movement voted by democracy and participated as much as I could. Even though I do not believe that Line Beauchamp will changes her mind, some things had to changes, like the amount of "prêts et bourses"given to students with the increase of the fees and how universities are managed. The strike brought those problems to light and something had to be done. Students working together to change our future is an amazing thing and we had the support of the population.

The Cégep de Rimouski voted no to the strike 3 weeks ago. I was happy to get back to class, hoping that our actions would make a difference and those still on strike would continue their peaceful manifestation.

But now I have the feeling that it went out of control and that we deviated from our goal. People making injunctions to go back to class and thus acting against democracy, people getting intimidated for their choices, heinous messages over the Internet, people not interested in the cause using the manifestations to wreak havoc in the streets, policemen hurting protesters, it has to end.

Yesterday, La CLASSE and Line Beauchamp had a discussion and a truce has been made. Let's hope an agreement will be possible some time soon so the student crusade will end before something really bad happen.

The strike showed me that student still care for their studies and are willing to work together for a noble cause. But starting to act more aggressively as the impatience grows can lead to some dangerous situations, and how quickly those who were in the losing side of a democratic decision are made the bad guys.

The only thing that I know for sure, is that we are shaping the Québec of tomorrow right now, even the French (from France) medias are calling it "Le printemps québecois", so let make the future generations proud of the actions that we made.

I can't find  the French new video about our strike anymore, so here's one of my favorite video. It's taken from the movie Up.