Settlement

I would like to write about my settlement experience in Canada. I arrived at this country on March 25, 2015 with my family who are my husband and 2 children. Our first important concern was about where we were going to live, because I liked Toronto, but my husband liked Mississauga, however we had good friends living in Mississauga that’s why we finally decided to live at Mississauga. After we accommodated in our rent basement we have a lot of thing to do, such as furnish the basement with our requirements like TV cable, computer, small bed for our toddler, buy some groceries and as well we had to take a driver license, buy a car, take insurance and SIN number, find a childcare and English school and many other things.

Fortunately, Canada is a country prepared to receive many immigrants and its public system works very well, all the information is by internet in the website and you can do many things online, even some appointments.

We found everywhere many information about everything and even more that we didn’t know, that info is available in places how libraries, regional municipality, community centers and some Facebook groups from Latin communities which were so useful for sharing many immigrant experiences and advices.

A funny story I can remember is when my husband and my older son took a bike ride using the GPS by Google Maps on my husband’s cellphone, then they were lost without the map because the battery of his phone was over. They return to our house around 3 hours later and they were very sore for around 3 days because they had a lot of time without riding bike (back home is not usual just when you are kid), many time after that, we knew very well the area where we lived, and they were lost in a place to 15 minutes by bike from our house.

In my personal experience, the most difficult thing is learning English fluently. For my husband (who already brought a base of English from our country), my son (who never paid attention to their English classes back home) and even my daughter (lol) all of them speak English very well and fluently. I know every person is different and we have different times, that’s why I am studying and I want to find a good job to show my good English.

In my opinion I didn’t find barriers here, the English is for me a challenger not a barrier, and about all else I think is good, everything is attitude.