Write@Home
Winter 2015

Settlement

flying plane in sky

We came to Canada by plane, this journey took 13 hours in the sky non-stop. We were 350 passengers in this plane. All passengers were from Syria. There were many children crying all the time. The chairs of the plane were very small, I remember I couldn’t move in my chair. The time was ticking very slow, one hour seemed like week. My little daughter was running up and down the aisle and I was so angry because I had never travelled by plane before. I was nervous I couldn't allow anyone from my family to play or do anything annoying all through the journey.

I feel now, I was very unfair with my family. The flight attendants were very nice with all passengers that gave us some relaxed time. When we arrived at the Toronto airport there were some people waiting for us to do all our paperwork. Then they took us to the hotel with 2 rooms for my family. We stayed in the hotel until next morning; it was a quiet night because we were very tired. In the morning they took us to the airport again. From 350 Syrians just my family was going to P.E.I. At the airport there was a woman who lead us to the right way to the next flight. She just spoke English, and I knew a little English that helped me communicate with her. She was very friendly, and gave us some comfort. We were nervous because we were now in a new country and we went into the airplane that was going to get us to P.E.I.

I looked around in the airplane; it was wonderful; the chairs were great and all the passengers were Canadian.  Now the annoyance came from us; everyone was quiet except my children. The journey from Toronto to P.E.I took one and a half hours.  The total number of passengers were 20. It was a wonderful journey because the time flew, we arrived P.E.I very quickly. The pilot of the plane called my son Ahmed and let him sit in his seat and allowed him to fly the plane. He was a very nice pilot. All the passengers greeted us, we felt we are in our country. At the P.E.I airport there were three people for our reception. They took us to the motel. They were very friendly. After a nice night we woke up in the morning and took the first cup of coffee in our new country - Canada. Thank you Canada and Canadians for giving us a home.