You are Now Permanent Residents 😊🇨🇦🇨🇦

2weeks have gone by already. The year has been off to a quiet, boring and uneventful start,  and thanks to Covid, we are back to a second round of lockdowns.

Back to the matter. Once we got first passport request (PPR) in September 2019, we requested for extension to submit our passports for visa stamping (because we could not fly immediately as wifey was almost due), and IRCC (Canada immigration) graciously obliged us extension till December.
We then got into action, selling property, packing food and clothing, and wifey did a fantastic job with the packing. She packed so much medication that our host in Canada jokingly remarked that we landed in Canada with a whole pharmacy.

I still regret till today that I did not sell my major properties in Nigeria and bring in all the money with us in dollars. For context, while we were preparing to leave, a Canadian dollar sold at about N290, but today, 15th January 2020, a Canadian dollar sells at N370 (black market rate). It is incomprehensible how the naira has lost so much value in such a short timeframe.

I was too sentimental about selling my property. I will never make such mistake again.

We resorted however to getting a tenant for the flat, and I experienced firsthand, the pain that tenants go to rent properties in Lagos. The hustle was real! For a 2bedroom flat, we counted not less than 10 tenants who came to inspect the flat in less than two weeks. Two separate tenants even came to inspect the flat together and met in the flat at the same time, but they didnt care. Thankfully, we got a great tenant, and it has been a pleasure.

Our second PPR request came on 24th December, and I went right away to submit our passports same day. We were working at clockwork speed, and looking back, I am grateful that we did not miss any step. Our stamped passports was ready for pickup in about a month..perfect timing. While we waited for our passports to be returned, we booked our flight to Canada for 29th January, in a speculatory move that our passports would be out by that time, and we were right.
I worked in the office till a few days till departure too.

My wife's parents came to see us off to the airport, and my father-in-law prayed an important prayer which I paraphrase as "Dear Lord, please do not let these children become a burden to us back home". Apparently, he was worried whether we would settle in Canada on time, or would still need financial support from home.
To mitigate that kind of situation, I had started applying for jobs from Nigeria before we left, and I got a sizeable number of call backs. For one application in particular, I passed two stages of interview, and the third stage was fixed for the week following our landing date. Everything was perfectly timed, and any delay would have cost us so much.

We flew on thursday, 29th January 2019. How my wife was able to take care of our 3months old baby on a 18hr+ flight to Canada, till today, I still do not know. She was tired for most parts of the flight, and it looked like - "why all the hurry to leave and put me through all this stress?". Our older son was well behaved all through the flight as we occupied him with loads of cartoons. Each of us was fighting our battles - of relocation to a strange land and seeing unfamiliar places and faces - and we did a great job.

We landed at Toronto Pearson airport on friday 30th January 2019, after a 7hour stop over stop-over at Frankfurt. We got on the immigration queue at the airport for our permanent residency documents, so the CBSA (Canada customs) officer asked.. have you been convicted for a crime, done anything illegal etc. The question sounded strange to me - like, how could someone ask me such a thing? A completely clean guy like me? So I chuckled. Na my village people wan catch me so o! He asked me again, this time with seriousness on his face. I knew at that point that any more fuckup would prompt the officer to ask me to step aside for further questioning. I obtained sense, got rid of the slouch in my posture and my swag and answered like a responsible gentleman - No.

All 4 of us were given SINs (Social Insurance Number), moved on to customs, luggage and food items checked, our money was counted by customs, we put down our address for delivery of our PR cards. We were too tired to note if any of the officers told us "Welcome to Canada", but we must have heard congratulations countless times.
We got out of the airport hall, and the winter cold hit me! I was signed up for that, but I wasnt fully for such harsh reality. Host came by after about 30mins, but the harm had been done. We got home and wifey tried to give our older son a bath, and he shouted one of his first full words "mummy, where's my jacket?!" when the cold hit him.

I had back-to-back interviews on Monday, Tuesday, and several phone interviews the days following. I was so poorly prepared for the winter, that I didnt even have a winter boot. I attended all the interviews with my regular work shoes from Nigeria, and it was a miracle that I didnt slip and fall on ice.

I will write about my job interviews on the next post - in two weeks time. Thanks for your time.

I still havent figured how to put my thoughts together into one continuous flow, so i apologise for being all over the place once more.

Have a fab weekend.
Catch ya!