A newcomer to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, by way of Cap-Haitien, northern Haiti, Steve Dubois came to Canada's Capital region to study civil engineering at the University of Ottawa. He worked as a security guard for the good folks of Iron Horse Security to make ends meet, but the life of an international student in Canada was kind of rough. The higher rates he was paying on campus were bad enough. His social life was practically nonexistent.
The Canadian people weren't as friendly as everyone around the world seem to think they are. As a six-foot-three, burly and dark-skinned young Black man from the Caribbean, Steve Dubois knew that he couldn't escape their notice, which made his life all the more complicated. While walking around the University of Ottawa campus, Steve got used to the stares, not just from the Black folks but also from Arabs, Chinese and Indian students.
Steve Dubois felt like a fish out of water at the University of Ottawa. Sometimes, he wished he'd never left the island of Haiti to study in Canada. He felt more alone than he ever thought he could. Never mind that the City of Ottawa was indeed one of the most racially diverse places in all of Canada, Steve's very dark skin made him stand out even among other Black students. Many of the Black people at the University of Ottawa thought Steve came from South Sudan, rather than the Caribbean. Go figure.
Having grown tired of life on the University of Ottawa campus, Steve Dubois looked for a place of his own. He had to go all the way to Barrhaven to find a decent place. The landlady, an older Nigerian Muslim immigrant named Alia Ajoku, was charging him five hundred bucks a month for a basement apartment. Steve had his own bathroom, laundry, kitchen, and a television set and an old but functioning computer with internet access. The place was alright, too bad the Nigerian landlady was nosy as fuck.
"Madame Ajoku, I've been a good tenant, and I'm always polite to you, why do you like to bother me?" Steve Dubois asked Alia Ajoku one evening. He had just come out of the shower and was wearing his boxers, with a wet towel draped over his shoulders. The tall, burly Haitian brother was definitely not expecting to find his nosy Nigerian landlady in the basement, and sitting on his bed no less. What the fuck was going on here?