Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Inuvik ( Mar 03/00) - Kerry Alkadri likes to talk, and that's a good thing.

He's held down three jobs since moving to Inuvik four years ago, and said they've all had one thing in common -- people, and the ability to talk to them.

"I am a people person, and this job is about totally interacting with people," he said last week, speaking between, and to, customers at United Taxi, where he works as a dispatcher and clerk.

The energetic 24-year-old doesn't even mind talking about the past, though some of it contains troubled memories. Born to Palestinian parents exiled in Lebanon, as a boy Alkadri experienced the poverty, famine and horror that civil war brings. And like every family caught in the middle, experienced the deaths of loved ones.

The promise of a new life in Canada held out hope, however. He said that while he mainly knew of Western culture through films like Clint Eastwood's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he found himself in possession of a brand-new life when his family was granted refugee status and he landed in Calgary in 1986 at the age of 11.

Coming North at the invitation of his brother, Tony, Alkadri said he also discovered he wasn't alone in starting over in Canada.

"When I arrived in Inuvik I was surprised to see about 30 people from my home town, Taalabaya," he said. "These were people who I shared food with off of the same plates, but people I didn't even know had left Lebanon."

As a dispatcher, Alkadri now knows precisely what's going on in town. He said that with the cabbies acting as the eyes and ears of Inuvik, he's more or less working at "information headquarters." He said when anyone wants to know what's happening -- from when's bingo? Is this or that place open? Did you see my kid driving around in my truck? What time is it and is it day or night? -- they're sure to call United.

Alkadri said one of his favourite customers is Lucy Adams, 30 Franklin Road, "because she's been a sweet lady to me for the past three years with her good mornings and thank you's."

Alkadri said he never actually met the woman he calls "auntie" until a year-and-a-half ago during a chance encounter at the Northern Store.

"I heard her talking to someone and knew immediately who it was and as soon as I opened my mouth she knew me, too," he said. "There are a lot of wonderful people in this job, but that situation is the one that I love."

If Alkadri has his auntie, he also has his cousin Hussien Moustafa, who he said is more like a brother. The pair first laid eyes on each other when the Canadian-born Moustafa showed up in Alkadri's Grade 3 class to learn Arabic. They now overlap shifts at United and only occasionally want to throttle each other.

"He can be (trouble) once in a while," conceded Moustafa with a grin.

Meanwhile, Alkadri has plans. He's travelling to Lebanon for the first time in 12 years this spring to attend his brother Tony's wedding. He's also aiming at a return to the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology this fall, but added that wherever life takes him, he'll always return to Inuvik.

"I really enjoy living in this community and all the wonderful people I meet," he said. "It actually reminds me of my hometown, where you can walk down the street and say hello to everyone."