53. Chemo Chilly Eh?

Dalal Chuaqui and I worked in housekeeping at the hotel.  My first impression of her was that she was an older, energetic, meddle-some, short busy-body who dabbled a bit in paintings in her spare time.  One day she asked me to do some modelling for her, after numerous co-workers had turned her down.  She would pay.  Cash.  Getting paid for just sitting there?  I quickly jumped at the chance!  It was then that I got to know her better...

She rented an apartment in the Madrid building on the corner of Broad and College (still there), a place with creaky hardwood floors, high ceilings and a lot of ambience.  She would start each session by pouring us a cup of tea (English culture infiltrated Chilean culture).  Then, while painting, she would play her favorite Chilean or classical music, talk about her previous life, talk about arts and culture and feed me Chilean food, home-made beef empanadas in particular.  Yummy!  Throughout our painting sessions I would learn that she had studied drawing, composition and painting at the University of Santiago, that she had Arabic origins and that her father had owned a nylon stocking factory in Santiago.  She left Chile in 1971.  After a brief stay in Germany she settled in our city in 1973 the year of the coup by Augusto Pinochet.  She had a great sense of humor and liked to play tricks on people.  For instance:  every time a newcomer started at the hotel by way of introduction, she would say: "I met this lady on the sidewalk today on my way to work and she said to me: "Chilly Eh?".  I was so very surprised!  I thought to myself:  How does she know??"  

My parents were patrons.  So were the late Morris and Jacqui Shumiatcher among many others in our city.

Dalal moved to Ottawa in 1978.  The loss was ours.  She was generous, kind, social and talented with a mischievous sense of humor.  She never married.  When she died in Ottawa in 2010 at the age of 81 from terminal cancer, she left behind numerous nieces and nephews, memories and art work in Canada and elsewhere and all her pre-1971 art work in Chile because she never went back there.

So I was curious whether or not there was indeed an Arabic connection.  That's when I found this...  (see next post) 

Two old-fashioned "selfies" produced by Dalal.  😄  (she and I)