Brothers sing national anthem to thank Canada for welcoming them
Almaidani brothers live with their mom and dad in Corner Brook
Owais Almaidani can't remember much from the day he arrived in his new Canadian home.
But the cold weather on that February day has stuck with the now seven-year-old boy.
"I only remember it was snowing … and a lot of snow. When we came in the house some woman took a picture of a lot of people, and we were in the middle," said Owais.
He and his younger brother, Laith, four, wanted to record a video of them singing O Canada as a thank-you to the country that welcomed his family in 3½ years ago.
"I love Canada and I'm proud to call Canada our home and native land," he said in a phone interview.
It took Owais two weeks to learn the anthem, he said, before he got his mother, Marwa Almaidani, to record the finished product.
"Canada is a new home for us and [a] safe and peaceful home," Almaidani said.
"I have a lot of people who support me and they still come to my home every day. I see it as a new home and we love Canada."
'Home and native land'
In the video Owais and his brother wear matching red T-shirts with a big white maple leaf in the middle. Laith tries to keep up with his brother's enthusiastic singing and joins in during the long notes.
"My family came in 2016. We're happy to call Canada our home," Owais proclaims before launching into O Canada.
The Almaidani family lived in Damascus before feeing war-torn Syria in 2012. They spent the next several years in a refugee camp in Jordan, where Laith was born.
An Anglican church group sponsored their relocation to Corner Brook.
Marwar Almaidani said life is good in Corner Brook. Her husband, Mohamad, is a well-known barber and she is completing her English as a second language studies in September.
"We find something different here, something safe."
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