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January 10th, 2010, almost midnight, a family of 5 people arriving to Moncton, New Brunswick, and after the airport main door open… a lot of snow, … a dark and windy day, and maybe because of the stress of the trip I felt that night was the coldest night in my whole life… my first thought was… What did we do?
Many times, Canadians ask us why? Why a person can decide to leave his or her life behind.
Our lives were not easy in Bolivia. It is a developing country with many challenges to overcome. Often people did not agree with the decisions of the government and there were protests in the streets. My wife Cinthia and I, owned a restaurant downtown La Paz. I remember one day, because of the protests, we had to close our doors for almost a month. It was hard to keep business going. We used to buy boxes of vegetables for the restaurant. One day the cost would be 20.00 dollars and the next week 100.00.
We were sure that we wanted another kind of life, a better life, with more opportunities, a life more fair, not just for my kids, but also for us. We know that as a first immigrant generation we have to pay the price, but this price is cheap in comparison to all the great things that we receive every day in Canada.
At first, it was really strange to see people smiling everywhere, people wishing you a great day without any reason, people always willing to help you.
We met Bob and Carmen, the most generous and lovely married couple and now we consider for my children as their Canadian grandparents, and Anne, a volunteer who gave her heart and her time to help my children at school.
I remember one day after few months since living here, one of my children told me “dad, I really miss my family, I really miss my grandma, I miss my friends, can we please go back to Bolivia?”, my heart was just broken in that moment, I could feel that maybe they were suffering my decision to immigrate to Canada. We came from big families, we miss all of them every day, and of course we miss our home country and our friends. But, almost one year later my children told me “dad… we cannot imagine living in another place than Canada”.
Now our home is here, in this place that challenges us every day, that give us a new future every moment, we appreciate the love and help that generously many friends and people we meet give us, we always thank God for giving us the courage to immigrate and the wisdom to choose Canada.
I am very proud to be part of the beautiful land called Bolivia, because I was born there, and I love Canada because I was reborn here.