She’s a woman with many talents, and her presence is well-known around town despite only moving here in 2016.
Some know her for her authentic Mexican food, including her catering business (Fabiola’s Mexican Food) and food truck that appears during the Williams Lake Farmers’ Market and other events around town, including the Stampede. Others know her from the dance and aerobic classes she teaches, from Zumba to salsa. Others know her as the program assistant at the Women’s Contact Society (WCS), while others know her as Mama and Gramma.
Her grandmother role brought Fabiola Faubert to Canada in 2016. Her oldest son was already living in Williams Lake with her brother after Faubert sent him here to complete high school and provide him with more opportunities. Later, her son had a daughter, who was taken by the Ministry of Children and Family Development and placed into foster care. This is when Faubert stepped in.
“As soon as I knew (my granddaughter) was taken away from her parents, I said no, I want to go get her. She has a grandma that can be a mom. I started all over again because my kids were already teenagers.”
Faubert grew up in Escuinapa, south of Mazatlan and north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. She spent a few years of elementary school in the United States before returning to Mexico where she graduated from school. She taught English for the next decade-plus, while also having her three children, born in 1992, 2000 and 2001.
Once she arrived in Williams Lake in 2016, she started from scratch, cleaning hotels, working at Walmart and teaching dance classes at the studio she used to have on Midnight Drive—all the while raising her young grandchild and two youngest children still in high school. When WCS approached Faubert about using her studio for a playgroup, she soon began working for them, first facilitating the playgroups and eventually to the position she’s in now.
“I like it here very much,” Faubert said of the WCS.
Her granddaughter lives with her dad again, who is now married, and they have three more children as well. Family is what keeps Faubert here. Though the first year in Canada was tough (a self-described social bug), she now loves Williams Lake, describing Canada as peaceful.
She and her husband, Florentino Oleta, also run their food truck, with a second food truck coming to Quesnel this summer. This began after Faubert’s brother encouraged her to make and sell tamales when she arrived in Williams Lake. She’d make them at home and sell them out of a cooler, eventually offering tostadas and tacos. Once Interior Health informed her she needed a permit, she went through all the needed requirements, including getting her FoodSafe certificate. She opened a stand at the farmers’ market before getting her food truck, where she sells burritos and quesadillas now, too. Her family is right there with her, prepping and making the food.
When asked what it’s like being the matriarch of her family, she said it’s good.
“Tiring sometimes, but good,” she said with a smile, bouncing her youngest granddaughter on her knee.
In March, she’ll head back to Mexico for a few weeks to visit her mother and daughter (who, after graduating from high school in Williams Lake, returned to Mexico for university and is getting married). She’s excited to bring back Mexican clay pots for her business.
Though she’s looking forward to the trip, she’s happy in Williams Lake, sometimes she expressed multiple times. This May, she’ll teach a dance class at the Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex and in August at Kiwanis Park.
“Williams Lake has been good for me.”