A Filipino national who spent several years in Saudi Arabia before reaching his dream destination of Canada, likes the Gaspé despite being 13,000km from his wife and two boys.
Originally from Dasmariñas in the north-west of the South Asian archipelago, Sherwin Dela Cuesta, a fiberglass laminator, first left his country in 2003 to work as a machinist in Saudi Arabia, but for a while he had Canada ahead of the curve.
“One of my relatives lives in Vancouver and has spoken to me a lot about his adopted country,” said the 44-year-old in an interview.
A job advertisement from an employment agency looking for workers for the LM Wind Power rotor blade factory in Gaspé in 2019 was like a sign of fate for him, and he tackled the job with both feet.
“In my first winter, I was blown away by the snow. By the second and third, I was slowly starting to understand the chills that come with this type of weather,” Sherwin told Dela Cuesta, as she showed up in running shoes for the interview we arranged for last month, allowing for a cool-down Feeling from -10 degrees was pretty good.
Although he likes Quebec, he is even further away from his family here.
“Of course it’s hard, but I’m doing this to give them a better life,” he said, noting that while his country has expertise in fiber optics, the salary there is far from those To be able to compete with Saudi Arabia or Canada. As soon as he has the opportunity to take a vacation, he visits her as often as he can.
In addition to his full-time job, he takes a French course on one of his days off. “It’s a lot of commitment, but it’s completely normal, it’s part of the job,” he says, underscoring the region’s French-speaking character.
Photo courtesy of Véronique St-Laurent
He speaks mainly English and Tagalog with the other Filipinos at LM Wind Power and practices Molière’s language with his French-speaking colleagues. However, he did not feel comfortable doing the interview in French but hopes that one day he can do it, he who has the ambition to one day settle in Gaspésie with his family. “If the living reality is simpler, yes,” he says scornfully, who lives alone in a small apartment.
Socializing in Quebec wasn’t all that difficult for Sherwin Dela Cuesta. He does this in particular by presiding over the Association of Filipinos of Gaspésie, which aims to bring together members of the community in various activities.