Wel­come to my new series, Ten Immi­grants, Ten Inter­views.

You guys all know my story by now, and you have a pretty good idea of what my life in Canada looks like. I thought it was time to let other immi­grants and new Cana­di­ans speak. I con­tacted ten of them, who each have their own story, their own rea­sons to come to Canada, their own point of view on how life is up North in the igloos. They all answered ten ques­tions, bring­ing a new per­spec­tive on immigration.

A new post will be pub­lished every Saturday.

Mourad At Winterlude

Let me intro­duce you to Mourad, from Oujda, Morocco. Mourad applied for per­ma­nent res­i­dence through the Québec skilled worker pro­gram and was granted his visa in the sum­mer of 2009. He is a patient guy… The immi­gra­tion process took an aston­ish­ing four years and a half!

Nonethe­less, Mourad is happy to be here. He lives in Gatineau, QC, min­utes from Ottawa where he works as a French lan­guage instructor.

The story of how Mourad and I met is funny. Last year, when we were trav­el­ing in Brazil, he found my blog and sent me an email regard­ing info about Ottawa. I did my best to answer his ques­tions and wished him luck. Last Sep­tem­ber, I showed up at the lan­guage school at was then work­ing for. A “new guy” looked at me and asked: “are you Zhu, by any chance?” He knew I was liv­ing in Ottawa, and he rec­og­nized me from the few pic­tures I have of myself on this blog. The world is a small place…!

What brought you to Canada?

I guess I chose Canada because it’s a beau­ti­ful (and huge!) coun­try. Besides, I like the fact a sub­stan­tial part of the pop­u­la­tion speaks French. Canada is also a mul­ti­cul­tural coun­try (and it wel­comes immi­grants). Finally, I like the fact it is so close to the U.S.A.

Did you find the immi­gra­tion process dif­fi­cult?

To me, the immi­gra­tion process was a gru­el­ing expe­ri­ence. It was long and expen­sive. It took me over 29 months to get my CSQ (Québec selec­tion cer­tifi­cate) and it took another two years for my appli­ca­tion to be approved by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. If you decide to start the immi­gra­tion process, it takes time and tenacity.

How long did it take you to find a job that you liked in Canada?

I landed on August 14^th, 2009. I didn’t start to look for a job right away: instead, I toured the National Cap­i­tal Region, around Ottawa, for three weeks. My ex-girlfriend’s friends invited me to stay at their place for the first cou­ple of weeks. Then, I had to look for my own place to live. It only took me five days.

At the end of the third week, I started to look for a posi­tion as a French instruc­tor in one of Ottawa’s many lan­guage schools. I listed all of them, along with their addresses and phone num­bers. Mean­while, I filled in a job appli­ca­tion at my local super­mar­ket, just in case I wouldn’t find a teacher posi­tion right away.

But barely two days after I sent out resumes and cover let­ters, I was asked for an inter­view in a lan­guage school. I was hired on the spot. I have been work­ing there for five months now. I like it even though I may not stay.

Where did you learn French/ Eng­lish? What was your sec­ond lan­guage level when you first came to Canada?

I learned French at school in Morocco. It then became my major and I stud­ied French lan­guage and lit­er­a­ture at uni­ver­sity. I also taught French in high school for a long time.

Eng­lish isn’t my strength (Note from Zhu: I trans­lated this inter­view from French). I try to prac­tice this lan­guage as much as I can, but I think I should take classes in order to truly progress. I do try to speak Eng­lish with my friends but we almost always switch back to French!

What was your biggest cul­ture shock?

I don’t think I expe­ri­enced a big cul­ture shock. I mean, Morocco is very dif­fer­ent from Canada, on many lev­els. But I didn’t really feel the cul­ture shock every­body talked about.

I did live in France for a while and to me both coun­tries are fairly similar.

I think I’m still at the hon­ey­moon stage. I don’t spend my time com­par­ing Morocco and Canada because there are way too many cul­tural and prac­ti­cal dif­fer­ences. I try to under­stand these dif­fer­ences. I also try to adopt a new way of life – it’s a lot of fun.

What haven’t you got­ten used to yet in Canada?

I’d love to know how skate like a true Cana­dian! Obvi­ously, win­ter sports are very new to me and I’m still not used to all these hockey, ski, and snow rack­ets things.

Did immi­grat­ing to Canada match your expectations?

I think I mostly wanted to immi­grate to see if I could be up to the chal­lenge, but also to dis­cover the world. It is a chance to get to know me a lot more… to see what I’m capa­ble of. So far, so good. I’m dis­cov­er­ing a lot of new things and I’m liv­ing in a new cul­ture, I see new scenery, I meet a lot of new friends… like you, Zhu!

But it is also true that immi­grat­ing is also a way of run­ning away… That said I have expec­ta­tion for myself, no mat­ter where I am in this world.

Do you find life expen­sive in Canada com­pared to your home country?

Yes, Canada is super expen­sive com­pared to Morocco. Food (espe­cially meat and fish, which I love) are way more expensive.

Will you apply for Cana­dian citizenship?

Of course! Once I meet the require­ments I will def­i­nitely apply for Cana­dian cit­i­zen­ship. I can’t wait. I think it’s going to be a mile­stone in my life.

What advice would you give to some­one inter­ested in immi­grat­ing to Canada?

My best advice? Think twice about your immi­gra­tion project before you start the process. You need to be strong, con­fi­dent and able to pull your­self together dur­ing uncer­tain times. You must also be strong-willed in order to succeed.

And last but not least… the immi­gra­tion process takes a lot of time – use this time wisely and starts to learn to speak both French and Eng­lish.

Related arti­cles:

1. Lucile And Mur­taza: From France and India to Montreal
2. Two Soli­tudes And One Loneliness
3. Kha­tia Odze­lashvili: From Geor­gia to Ottawa
4. Nui: From Thai­land to Ottawa
5. How Much Does Immi­grat­ing Really Cost? (5÷10)