Conversation with Kelmys S.

Title

Conversation with Kelmys S.

Description

Kelmys is an international student at Algonquin College. She is currently in her second year, studying advertising and marketing communications. Although she is very busy with school, in her free time, she loves to try new food and eat at different restaurants. She also loves going to jazz lounges with her friends.

Date

2025-02-07

Format

MP3, 13 mins 37 s

Language

English

Interviewer

Amy Lam

Interviewee

Kelmys S.

Transcription

Amy: Yeah, so my name is Amy, and I'll be interviewing you today for my, I guess, my little assignment. Why don't we start off with a little introduction of yourself?
Kelmys: For sure. Hello, my name is Kelmys. I am an advertising and marketing communication management student at Algonquin College. I'm from Colombia.
Amy: Yeah, so as you mentioned, your country is, your country of origin is from Colombia. What brought you to Ottawa?
Kelmys: It was mostly studies. I always wanted to travel and like if I had the opportunity to live somewhere where I could speak English, as I've been studying it for a while, I would have loved to do so. So this was an insane opportunity for me in Ottawa specifically, but because not many colleges offer a program like the one I'm taking right now it's either marketing or advertising and I wanted to get into both because I'm into strategy and creative so it was just like the perfect choice I'd say.
Amy: How do you like Ottawa so far?
Kelmys: Uh it's fun. I really like downtown. I think it's a very beautiful city and the canal was such a culture shock for me. I feel like there's so many things that have definitely been a huge culture shock. But overall, it's a very pretty city. And I like living here, yeah.
Amy: Yeah, do you- were you the only one who moved here? Or do you have family here? And how often do you see them?
Kelmys: No, I'm on my own. I moved on my own when I was 17, yeah.
Amy: Do you live in a Latin community or neighborhood where you speak Spanish or Portuguese and celebrate various celebrations?
Kelmys: I don't live with Latin American people. All my roommates are from various parts of the world, but I do have many close friends with whom I basically spend my whole week, like from school, who speak Spanish. So I guess I mostly celebrate with them. Most of them are from different parts of Latin America. There's not many Colombians per se, but like they do help me like remember the importance of my culture because I feel like for a while when I was living, I lived on campus for a while and it was with a girl who's from Canada. I felt like I was getting separated from my culture in a way. So now that I have closer friends, it's definitely helped a lot.
Amy: Do you still live on campus?
Kelmys: No, I live in a different accommodation. Very far away from Algonquin.
Amy: Yeah. What celebrations are most important to you?
Kelmys: From Colombia?
Amy: Yeah, from Colombia or just in your everyday life? .
Kelmys: I guess…I mean, I don't know, I feel like we have so many things that I can't think of something specific right now, but there is one celebration that I have been, I haven't been able to celebrate this past year, so it's been really sad, which is called El Dia de las Velitas or the Day of the Candles, which is an event we do every 7th of September- December, I'm sorry, where we just like light up some candles and the city will look very pretty and I haven't been doing that since I got here so that's like the one celebration I really miss that I would like to start doing again although my roommate kind of did it for me last year but like still um but yeah overall there's so many things in the culture that I guess I just implement in my daily life but not a lot just because it's very different I feel like many things from my culture are down like outside or the weather is like a very important part of it so it's kind of hard to do so being in Ottawa in the winter but apart from that it's fine, yeah.
Amy: What kind of things that you still do to implement your culture in your everyday life?
Kelmys: Umm, I feel like I, the main thing I will say I do is that I really talk about it a lot. I feel like I'm known as the Colombian girl everywhere I go just because I talk about my culture a lot and I talk about like Colombia a lot just because I really don't want to forget anything about the culture that I'm not being able to like experience on my daily life. But there's not many specific things I managed to do also because of like time limitations, I guess
Amy: Right, because you’re still a student.
Kelmys: Yeah, I feel like it's mostly just like talking about it very regularly and trying to get people to know more about my culture and my country.
Amy: Yeah, I love how you're still, even though you're not at home, you're still trying to connect with your culture and your heritage and backgrounds. And it's, to me, it's always so interesting, I guess, like, to hear different culture shapes, like the way that culture shapes the way we approach things. Can you describe a typical day in your community, or like a typical day at school?
Kelmys: Um, I guess it's just like a normal college day. But when I try to implement like the culture part, I have a very close friend who's from Peru. So I feel like my typical day would be like just going on about like the Canadian culture and trying to get used to it. But at the same time, we're always having conversations in Spanish. And we I feel like the main thing we do is like reminisce a lot being like, Oh, back home, we do this and this and this. So I guess every single day is just like that trying to remember stuff I did back home. But at the same time, it's just like a normal thing in the life of a college student, just being stressed and talking to my family back home, but I can't.
Amy: Yeah, going along with that, what are some values that you hold most dear to you and or your community that you think is important?
Kelmys: I feel like all of my ethics just com like from my hometown, I guess. I don't know how to explain it, but I guess I really value a sense of community. I really value…Honestly, I'd say I don't know it's just back home we have a way of like being with people. And I feel like it was another culture shock when I got here, just because I feel like people are not as close with one another. I don't know how to explain it or word it, but it feels like back home, there's a very, very strong sense of community amongst people you don't even know, just like your neighborhood or stuff. Whereas here, it's like everyone's kind of on their own. So I feel like I've always tried to implement that sense of community with people in my life here to try and remember the way I did it back home. So I feel like I've become a very social and extroverted person that I wasn't when I was back home, because I've tried to remember how it was in Colombia.
Amy: I totally get that. Like when I first moved here too I felt so I guess like, dissociate with the community, because we're not really social in that kind of sense.
Kelmys: Yeah, everyone's kind of awkward and they're nice, but you have to approach people first.
Amy: Yeah, exactly. Is there anything you would like to share about yourself and the community that you think is important for people to know?
Kelmys: I don't know if it's about myself, but I feel like about Colombia, there's just so many things in the culture that I feel like people just overlook, in a way. I feel like when people think of Colombia, they sometimes think of very specific things that do not represent the country at all. And one thing I've always wanted to do, and that I feel like I've been doing since I got here, is trying to show people that Colombia has so many things within itself. There's a culture in every single part of the country, like it's different in every single city basically. And there's so many things, like it's such an artsy country, it's just like everyone loves dancing, everyone's a very like happy, I don't know, they're very happy individuals and I feel like there's a stigma around Colombians and Latin Americans in general that I have been trying to get like people to change their mindset on just from like talking about it all over and over and over again, but yeah.
Amy: Yeah, no, I totally understand. Relating back to food, what kind of food do you make or do you try to eat that reminds you of home and where do you purchase these groceries or how do you prepare your traditional meals?
Kelmys: I am very bad at cooking, so although I've tried, it's been unsuccessful. But when I'm very sad or when I just need, like, something from home, there is this one Colombian restaurant called Toasty Arepas that I sometimes order from. And there's also a restaurant called La Fiesta Latina in Chinatown. So I usually order from them. I've tried cooking. I'm not good at it at all. But if I were to cook, I'd probably just make some arepas or, like, I don't know, empanadas. Those are like things that are in many countries in Latin America that we have a very specific way of cooking. And I've always wanted to cook it myself, but I'm really bad at cooking, so I gave up on that. But I still try to eat like Colombian food as much as I can, or just Latin American food in general, because I like food from all over, like, I don't know, all over the world, really. But like Latin America specifically, I feel like has a very specific taste that I really like.
Amy: Right. What would you say is your most favorite food?
Kelmys: There's something called papas locas. I don't know how to explain it, but it's just like, it's like a poutine if it had way more things. So a lot of cheese and a lot of, I don't know, it's a mix of so many things that's yummy. It's delicious.
Amy: It sounds delicious, yeah.
Kelmys: We have a lot of specific way of doing it in my hometown because I feel like every single city of the country, as I mentioned, just has different ways of doing things. I really like how it's done in my city. So yeah.
Amy: So throughout class, we have this website called Omeka, and it's basically to create digital exhibitions, allowing individuals to share their cultural heritage. So how likely would you and your family be able to use the website we are creating to upload any of your stories? How will you use it so that we can better serve the community? So any suggestions from you about the access as well as what we should be posting would be greatly appreciated.
Kelmys:I feel like I'd be very likely just because I really try to find ways to, as I mentioned, just talk about the culture. And I like connecting with other Latin Americans and just in general people from all over the world, which is something really cool about Canada now that you can find people from everywhere all over the world. I guess just like having people utter stories is a really good way of doing it and getting people to maybe respond to those stories with like, I don't know, like a conversation forum or something. I think that would be very cool because it's a way to like simplify connecting with people from your culture and other cultures that can be hard from I don't know introverts or people who haven't been able to find. Like those with whom they can connect, so I think it will be very useful and there will be many, many ways of just like. I don't know how to word it.
Amy: Yeah, no worries. I was talking to another one of my friends about it, and she also mentioned that we could change the language of the website itself too, so it's not only English. What do you think about that idea?
Kelmys: I think that would be great. The thing is, Latin America has so many languages, so it could be complicated, but I feel like English, Spanish, Portuguese, like French because Canada is a bilingual language, a bilingual country, I'm sorry, would be perfect just for people to feel like better when they're writing it down because many people just, it's like hard for them to get their words out in a different language. And it's totally understandable because it's their first language. So being able to just do it in your own language or feeling more comfortable about what you're saying, it's definitely going to be something they will appreciate. I will appreciate it myself too. Although I like speaking English, I miss Spanish all the time. So it's like, yeah.
Amy: Yeah, do you have any other questions, comments or concerns?
Kelmys: Um, no questions, but I think it's just a really interesting assignment. I was very interested when you mentioned interviewing, and I really appreciate getting the time to just talk about like a culture because I feel like just with all the college stuff and just being so busy you kind of start forgetting about those things that are really important just for like your own personal I don't know like who you are I don't know how to word it again but like just who you are you start forgetting how to approach that so it's just
Amy: At first, I think I mentioned this before when we were texting, but at first, this assignment, the whole course in general, to me, was just an easy bird course. But then the more the professor talked about it, I got so interested in like the community and the heritage and the backgrounds of different people, and even though Ottawa is so like I guess multicultural, it still feels so disconnected. Even though we celebrate all these events, all these cultures, the people themselves don't communicate with one another. We don't have a specific community for this culture or that culture. I feel like people who come here who originally aren't from Ottawa or Canada in general, I feel like, at least for me, even though I was born here, I still feel a little bit left out.
Kelmys: No, it feels like there's a connection with the culture. It's all very surface level, also because of the amount of cultures there are. It's very difficult to get into every single one, so it can be surface level and it can be hard to connect with people, as we've mentioned. But yeah, it's just a really good opportunity just to be able to feel more integrated with Ottawa.
Amy: Yeah, thank you for the interview.

Original Format

On Riverside