Dealing with employment challenges and seasonal depression immigrating to Canada feat. Ana Nelson

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Episode 41 • 16th January 2024 • The Speak English Fearlessly Podcast • Aaron Nelson

I could not understand why I wasn't feeling happy anymore, like why I really wanted to be excited. A lot of the things happening were first times for me. They were exciting. They were really cool and I could not feel happy and I couldn't understand. I didn't know what was going on. We were buying our first car. We were like, I spend a lot of time.

We leave within 4 minutes walking from the mall and they had one of my favorite stores in here, which is called Winners, and they're not paying us to give any shout at them. But it's a it's like a it's like a discount store.

They have really cool things and I and they and I not it's because they told me that they are right new things every day because they saw me there quite often, right. Because I was trying to make my home look nice and look pretty. And by noon I was really wanting to feel happy and for some reason I was not feeling that happy. So I was going and shopping and looking at all these things and I was. And sometimes I could feel happy, like, Oh, this is our first bedding set or This is our first cookies. We made in here, you know, And this is our our first Christmas, our first New Year's Eve. It was all very exciting things and I was not feeling them

Well, hello there and welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly podcast. This is the podcast for motivated English learners who want to speak English fearlessly and learn practical tips and strategies to conquer the kelp exam. I also love the feature encouraging interviews with regular people, people just like you who are working towards becoming fluent in English so we can learn from their experiences together.

Who am I? My name is Aaron Nelson and I've been an English teacher for over six years and I now work to help students prepare for the kelp exam through online classes.

I'm very happy to welcome my wife, Anna, to be able to speak with us today about what her experience has been like and the whole journey of immigrating to Canada.

And just like last week, the the whole idea of this was sparked by an article I read over the Christmas break, which I linked to last episode, and I'll put it in the show notes this time to just in case you you missed it and you might be interested in it, but what caught my attention from that episode was just the the mismatch that happened for one couple in particular who immigrated to Canada and how, you know, in their country of origin, where they were from, they were very well-educated, They had lots of work experience. They they were great at what they did. But when they moved to Canada, it was like they needed to start all over again. And that was such a huge shock for them in the article.

And based on some of the friendships that we, my wife and I have here in Canada, in Victoria where we live, it's kind of like an experience that seems to be well, unfortunately it plays out quite regularly and the idea of of this episode is not to discourage you or make you feel down or to make you even give up on your idea of moving to Canada.

Or if you're already here, it's not meant to make you feel down or make you feel like, Oh my gosh, what have I done? I thinking to go back to my home country. No, the idea is to try to give you well, hope and encouragement that you can do it and maybe maybe to help you to see things from a realistic point of view that it's not always I mean, for some people they do have a very good and easy experience.

But I think that more often than not, you have to struggle and you have to push really hard in order to make your life become established here in Canada. And it's not like, you know, the classic American dream or the Canadian dream where you cross the border and everything is, you know, rainbows and unicorns and everything is so happy. So without further adu, first of all, I want to welcome Anna. Anna, would you like to say hello and tell us a little bit about you?

Hello, My name is Anna and I am an immigrant to Canada. I am from Mexico, originally from Mexico City. I was born and raised and lived most of my life there. I What else can I tell you? I'm a mother of three boys.

Not so little. All of them. And we are. Well, even though Aaron is Canadian, we had a journey to immigrate here and it was not as easy as a lot of people will think because I am married to a Canadian.

There was a lot of benefits to that side, but still was kind of a hard to immigrate. But at the same time it was important for us to do it in the moment that we did it and we do not regret it at all.

And before we get going, could you tell everyone, like, what kind of work do you do during the day when you're not being a mom at home? What do you do from 9 to 4 or from 830 to 430 or so,

But okay, so this is the year: 2024

But we we moved here back in: 2015

And apparently at that moment, it was kind of still hot there was it was sunny and it was nice. I remember your dad and your sister in law who went to pick us up to the airport. They had like summer clothes on. And I was like, oh, okay. Well, it's not that cool. Remember me still inside of the airport as soon as we went outside? Coming from warm California. Warm Mexico. It was cold. And then we moved for the first, I was going to say weeks. For the first couple of weeks. We didn't we didn't have a place to stay here in Canada. So we arrived to a house that they had been trying to sell for about three years. And some of our friends were kind of like house sitting this place, and they were moving at the same time as we were arriving. They were moving back to England because she is from England, right? Right. So they said the people that were asking that they were letting them house it that place because they were trying to sell it. They said, well, well, you can come in and house it for us while the house sells and then they will give you enough time because they've been trying to sell this house for three years. So and that will give you enough time to find a place of your own. We were so excited the house was beautiful in the middle of the woods. It was quiet. It was amazing. In Mexico City, it's really hard to buy a house, at least for people around our age when we moved. Not our age. Right now

and we owned an apartment. So my kids were very, very used to play in small spaces and the other other plays where they play were in like public parks that were close or around our house. It was so new for them to have all these woods and all this area had to play in that It was for them. It was kind of scary, actually. The nature of all the nature that was around us. What is all of these? What are all these sounds that are not like car horns or buses or police sirens or helicopters or all those sounds of the city. You know, instead it's like perfectly silent at night and crickets and you hear the cracking of the animals like going around and like walking on branches and all these things. And so they were like, terrified. And I remember the house was huge and it has a big, big part yard on the back and a very nice front yard, very, very beautiful place. And and I remember it has like a big bag on the front. This house my kids rather to play in the deck because it was kind of like contained and little space just like what they were used to instead of playing with only the air that they had in front of them. So that was one of the first challenges we kind of like faced in the first first hours of arriving was that that my kids were actually kind of afraid of so much nature, so much open space. And all these animals they have not seen. Well, the oldest one and the and the middle one have been in Canada for the first well, for a couple of times, the oldest one and the middle one one time before we moved. But still, all of this is new because remember that when you move to a place, you have the set, you have your mind set on the fact that this is going to be permanent. So it's completely different than when you come from vacation for vacations and you move from your country and you're going to go back to your house to be safe and sound in your bed with all of these city noises around you and not the quiet and peace from the from the wood. So that was one our first challenges the weather and that my kids were actually city kids. So it was kind of hard for them to come around to all this nature and all this beautiful landscaping that we were looking at. All right. So that was an interesting challenge. And not all of Canada is like in the wild in nature, you know? I mean, with forest and whatnot, as soon as you go outside, I mean, now we live in Victoria, which is a small city. And I mean, there are there is nature within easy, easy access. You know, you can walk and find a park that's really, really lovely and whatnot, but not that it's not all like wilderness, I guess we could say, but that was definitely for us. Who are used to living in a city. It was it was different. It was a big change for us.

Were there any other challenges that happened for you in specifics like like that you maybe you weren't expecting when you when you left Mexico and everything that you were used to your life there? And then when you arrived here, what was that part like? No, not so much of what the children, but for you. Well, I have been to Canada a couple of times. No, like few times before. I've known the places around and

and I've been introduced to food before. So I thought I was ready. I thought I was like, okay, I know the place, I know the food. I know how it looks around. I been into the winter time here before I have been here. When it's snowing, I'm ready for it. But no, it's not. It's not the same. I it's, it really has to do with your mindset like I was saying before, when you're on vacations, you know that you're going to be back and there's something in your brain that is kind of like, it's cool, it's chill, enjoy, because you're going to be back to kids again, to your work, to your city, to where you're normally. So you're actually enjoying everything around you because you don't live there. But then when you move and you know that it's for real, it's very different. Now you start seeing things that you never seen before. The cold felt colder. The food was not as not that it's not nice, but it was not as comforting as it was before. Before everything was new, Right? And this time was like, I'm missing

home. Right? The flavors from home and all those things. And I knew that I was not going to eat real tacos for a while. I knew that I was not going to have or chat the water for a long time. So it was starting to make all these struggles inside of me that I was like, Oh, this is for real. So you mentioned when you were talking to things that I think are common to people who are especially used to living in a warm a warm country and that is the change of temperature that you you and it's an interesting point that you make, that when you're visiting a place, you you have it in your mind that, oh, this is just kind of a temporary situation. So you enjoy it and experience it in a different way than you would

moving to a place where you realize all of this is now my reality. You know, my, my, my permanent reality, I hope. And that kind of changes what the cold feels like. It's no longer oh, this is a this is cool. Literally, this this is now

something I need to prepare myself for. And I remember the first, you know, as we got into October, later into October, in November,

we bought all of our our winter clothes. I think we went we went the first time we went to a used clothing store to get winter boots and everything because we didn't want to overspend. And we tried to find the biggest warm things that we could find. But also I remember in our in our first well when when we moved in to this place that we that we did that six month damp down payment for. I remember the first heating bill that came in. I still remember almost crying because it turned out to be like $800 almost. It was it was a lot of money because, well, more, more. Fran is like she wasn't used to that to the cold that that we were experiencing. And we were just living with the with the heater up as high as it could go for my poor wife who was just struggling with the cold. So that was one thing that that we experienced was the change in temperature and realizing just how and realizing the permanency of the move.

And so once we got ourselves established and everything, how long did it take for you to be actually able to work? Because that was another kind of challenge for us is that when we came, we didn't have a job, we didn't have work to go to. I didn't have work to go to, even though I'm a Canadian citizen. And I shared a wee tiny bit about it in the previous episode about how I eventually was able to find work. But it took us

a while. I started I started my full time job at the end of November. I think it was May or maybe it was December. I can't remember now at the end of November, but it took us like two or like two months of looking and looking and looking. Yeah, and I had to and I talked about this in the previous episode, so I'm not going to get into it this time, but just the whole process of learning how to do my resume over again and and what to put in there and what not to put in there, and how helpful it was for me to find

an employment agency that that provided training about how to do that because I wasn't used to the Canadian job market. Even though I was a Canadian. I had lived in Mexico for 16 years and well, when when I before I moved, I was just a teenager here in Canada. My my first jobs were, you know, the simple ones that you don't really need a lot of experience for. But when I moved back, that was my I was much different. So finding finding work was hard. But what was it like for you because you didn't come in with the ability to work? And I was wondering if you could share what that felt like not being able to work and how you how you went about being able to work eventually. I don't know. Maybe if I tell the whole story of how we got our papers coming in and all the miracles that we went through, it will be a very long episode. Maybe we can do another episode with all of our adventures to get here. But as soon as we arrive, we had the idea of saying that we were going to visit because we came on tourist business. Mexicans needed until that point and a couple of years ago they needed a tourist visa to get into Canada. And not because I was married to a Canadian was any easier. Actually, it was very shocking that for us there were more

proofs and stuff that they were asking to make sure probably that we were not coming to stay. So we got our tourist visa in Mexico and we said, Well, what if they ask us what is the the result of her being said? And and we said, we're going to say that we're just visiting, that we're tourist, but we didn't want to start our new life lying. So and when we were on the plane, probably about to land, we looked at each other and we said we should say the truth. We should say that we're landing with the intention of staying. And that's what we did. We arrived. They say, Oh, what's the purpose of your visit? And Erin said, Well, I'm coming back home

and this is my family. We're going to try to see if we can stay. And in that moment, they gave us a letter, like a special letter that they told us it was going to help us for our

process of permanent residence for our kids. So it was going to be their dual citizenship for me. It was going to be my permanent residence. So this letter is kind of like cancelled my tourist visa, but it was not my permanent residence. It was to start it right away. And they said that you have to start your presents right away. So we arrived here in October and I think we were just trying to figure out all the things of finding a new place and paying up front all that much money because we didn't have references that we kind of like didn't think about that too much. But in December we sat down and we said, okay, we need to tackle this. And we did. We started the process of the permanent residence. It was in December, but you have to be very careful when you do your process of a permanent residence. You have to read everything and follow the just like in the tests when you sit down and there's probably one thing at the end that is said, Oh, you had to like that surprise question from the teacher just to make sure that you were reading the test is the same with the process. We decided because we didn't want to overspend, that we didn't going to hire a lawyer. Eric had

citizenship. I had good enough English to understand all of it. For a lot of people that are moving and going through this journey and don't have a very, very good English, probably it's good to find some help for us. We thought it was going to be better to save money, so we did all the process ourselves. We didn't hire anybody to do it for us and we're glad we did. And actually it was a lot of money. So we started doing these things and in one of the instructions said that you have to prove without any use, pays between years. What were you doing from? I don't know. I think from the moment that you start school until the moment you're there. So I had to fill in where I went to kindergarten, where I went to elementary. When I went to

middle school, high school, university, I went to two universities and then the time that I was working, what I was doing in between jobs. And there was a moment in my life that I kind of like didn't have something doing going on. And I didn't put it. I just I just enter the the year of my last job to the one that I was my very last one. And

so that was a mistake. That was a mistake because you cannot leave spaces from the years. So I had to write down from this year to this year. I was not working. I had to write them down. And so we send the application and we thought, Oh, well, the process started la la la. We were so happy. And then on March, yeah, I think I was on March. That was a summer. On March we got it back and they were like, You have to start all over again because you made the mistake of skipping years. And I was like, Oh no. And he felt so bad because we thought we did everything right. And it was very clear there that it says You can skip years. But we didn't think about it. We just were like filling in as I thought that they were just interested to know what I was doing professionally with my life and what they wanted to do is what I was doing with my life, period. So that was one of the mistakes are they send it back, we redo it again. We sent out just filling in, obviously a new application and I fill in that space and that I wasn't working in that moment. We send that back. That was in March and I think it was the and April the first days of May that I got a job, were work in permit and I was so excited because from October to May, basically I was not working. I had the fortune that our kids since Mexico were doing homeschooling, not fortunate enough for them, but for me because I was feeling like I was doing at least something. But it was very hard. Another thing that I didn't mention about the challenges but I'm going to include here because it happened during this time that I was not working. It was wintertime

and winter here is very different from winter in Mexico. It's very damp, it's very cold, very wet. It rains all day for many days, for many weeks, sometimes seriously, for weeks. You cannot see the light of the sun. Yeah. So for me that I come from a very warm country, it was hard aid. It it was the very first time that I experienced something that is called seasonal depression. And on top of that, I was not working. I had the kids at home because they were home schooling. It was very difficult those times.

I felt like I was not. We were we were very blessed that air was working, that we had the money from the the sale of our house. But still there was a bottom to that money. There was and we were reaching it. We were really, really quick get in there and claim that huge bill of the power bill for the for the months that I was really cold I mean, I was not used to. So we had to get the heating on most of the time. So all of those challenges, I felt the pressure because I didn't feel productive and I felt like I was

like an anchor to our boat, you know, instead of sailing towards beautiful seas, I was like pulling it back, you know? But that was in my mind. And I had to deal with all of that seasonal depression and not being productive. So as soon as I got that letter, it was like, Yeah, I am free. But now there was a couple of clauses in that work permit that said I was not allowed to work, that I haven't heard from many people that it is a common clause. Not everybody has them, but for some people they are included. And the clause was I cannot work in health services or educational services, so I couldn't work as a teacher or I couldn't work with kids basically, and I could not work in hospitals or in facilities that were about health.

Yes, I'm remembering all these things and

so when you got that work permit,

there's a couple of things that we should talk about a little bit. And so when we arrived, we got something called the Visitors, a visitor visa, and and it's not the same as a tourist visa. It gave they gave us a year, uh, the ability to stay in Canada for a year for me, I could stay for as long as I wanted, but for because I was a Canadian citizen, but for Anna and for our three kids, they were given a year. Uh, the right to stay for a year. And for our children, the same visa gave them permission to get enrolled in school. And for Anna, like what she was sharing, It didn't give her permission to work. It was just permission for her to to be here for was to volunteer. You know, she could volunteer if she wanted to, but we didn't really go down that route too much. Um, so you mentioned something that might be useful to talk about. You were talking about, uh, seasonal depression. And for someone again, who's not used to local weather here in the West Coast where we are in, in British Columbia, well, not all British Columbia experiences the same kind of weather as we do on on Vancouver Island or Vancouver. But if you're not used to rain all the time, if you're not used to snow, if you're not used to the cold, this can be something that affects you. And if you've never experienced it before, it might throw you completely off of your your mission or your desire to stay here. It may it will make you want to go back home and give up. And maybe you're not even sure what's going on with you, like why you're feeling a certain way. So I was wondering if you could maybe share what seasonal depression feels like and if you feel comfortable doing that just just so that if somebody is just, you know, stepping off the plane or has never experienced a West Coast winter before with, like you say, days and weeks of just constant rain, what does that feel like when you start to feel that seasonal depression just so that they might know what's going on in their life, if that's what they're feeling, what are the symptoms? well, it feels like sleep. It feels really weird because I was excited in my in my in my heart. Inside of me there was this excitement of starting a new life. So I was happy to be here. I was genuinely happy to be here. But the farther we went into winter and having all these things, I could not understand why if I was in a place where I liked we were closer in the beginning. We we were really like, you know, when you're a like the new one in town, everybody is like wanting to be with you. And we were surrounded by people. We had his that coming to visit us almost every weekend. His family, his brother and sister in law also were with us very closely at the beginning when we were trying to get established. We found a church that was a beautiful church that were very close to what a feeling as a feeling of of home with our church from Mexico. So it was kind of like close to that feeling of being there. We made connections really quick in that church. People, we live very close to that church, so I didn't I could not understand why I wasn't feeling happy anymore, like why I really wanted to be excited. A lot of the things happening were first times for me. They were exciting. They were really cool and I could not feel happy and I couldn't understand. I didn't know what was going on. We were buying our first car. We were like, I spend a lot of time. We leave within 4 minutes walking from the mall and they had one of my favorite stores in here, which is cold winters, and they're not paying us to give any shout at them. But it's a it's like a it's like a discount store. They have really cool things and I and they and I not it's because they told me that they are right new things every day because they saw me there quite often, right. Because I was trying to make my home look nice and look pretty. And by noon I was really wanting to feel happy and for some reason I was not feeling that happy. So I was going and shopping and looking at all these things and I was. And sometimes I could feel happy, like, Oh, this is our first bedding set or This is our first cookies. We made in here, you know, And this is our our first Christmas, our first New Year's Eve. It was all very exciting things and I was not feeling them. That was the first year, the second year.

Then around March, I received my my pr and the weather starts to change. We're going to spring one of my favorite seasons here. I just start seeing all of the flowers bloom and the weather starts getting milder.

And by around April, the end of April, beginning of May, the weather starts feeling a lot better. And then the summers are fabulous. And here, like, they're really hard. You live by the lake or the sea. We're surrounded by water because literally then I learned. So it's beautiful. And then I felt super happy and I was like, yes, this is this is what I was expecting. This to be like, you know? And again, a lot of our first happened through that year. So I was super excited and I was super happy.

And then October came November came and I was starting to feel down. And by this time we were already move into our second home. It was a basement suite because here in Canada you can find big houses that have apartment rentals on the bottom or in their basements.

That's a very common thing for newcomers, is very common for them to rent basement suites, there's nothing wrong with it. And we had a basement suite, so it was dark, bigger than the other place.

And it was I, I was starting to feel again, like sad and feeling like I miss home. I missed my parents. I miss food. Food was one of the biggest things for me that I was missing since day one we left. I think so It was like really hard and I was struggling again and I was crying for everything and I was feeling really homesick and all this things and I was like, Oh, at that time my cousins came and it was there. They came and we went. All of us had birthdays in December. So my husband was super kind and gave us a nice vacation to Vancouver for the three of us, and we were able to go and we still felt like kind of like I was excited for them to be here. I was having a great time. I was happy to see them. I was loving the time, but I still felt kind of like sad inside.

So I don't know who we were talking with. I think it was with our pastors and she is a nurse. It was from our first church that we we came to. He he is a super nice guy and she is a nurse. And she all of a sudden said that they were the seasoned blues. This is seasonal blues. And I was like, What are a seasonal blues? Oh well, it happens a lot to people that come from other weather, the other kind of season is, But the closer you are to the equator, the less big changes that you see in the seasons. And Mexico doesn't have such a big change on seasons.

They happen in like the rest are in North America, right in the States or in Canada especially. So in Canada there is this big seasons like before. You can totally distinguish the four seasons like in the movies, like Springtime, you can see all Green and the Flowers and the weather getting nicer. The summer is super hard. All these areas are you can go in the lake and the beach and and then the fall, which is my favorite. And it's astonishing to see all the changes on the colors and the skies. The autumns skies are beautiful and and then the winter's really strong. You can see the whole four seasons.

But in Mexico is not like that. In Mexico you have spring, you have rain is the sun, which is not a cold season. It's still warm. And yeah, so we have something kind of like like winter, which is cold mornings. But by the end of the day, like you reach high temperatures 20 something in the middle of the day. So it's not really cold. It is cold, but not this cold. And definitely you see a lot of light.

And the problem here and that's what she was explaining to me is that the sun goes for many, many days because it's raining season here. That's why it's snow. There's no there has to be enough humidity and the temperature low enough to create the snow. So she said the fact that you're feeling like that is because there's not enough light for you and you come from a place where it's warm. So it's it is a thing. It is a thing. It's a seasonal depression. And I'm pretty sure that's why you're facing.

When she said that the symptoms were like, you're tired all the time, you're feeling really like sense of all for everything. Like things that normally would not make you cry will make you cry or like you feel are irritable, irritable, irritable. You see, I might have good English, but sometimes my accent goes, comes out and. And there's things like. Like that.

And I thought, I always like the rain. Even in Mexico, I always tell Erin that I like rainy days and I wish I live in London. I said many times and now I totally regret. Yeah. Like we said at the very beginning, it's it's different. I see it on the movies or whatnot. But when you live it day in and day out, it kind of changes things.

So you were saying that some of the symptoms of seasonal depression is a lack of energy when you're normally pretty active, is feeling sensitive to things where you just feel like you're going to cry and sometimes you actually do cry and you just don't know why. And it's just like lethargic feeling slow, feeling like no motivation to do things. You just want to stay home and do nothing and just be sad. And probably you just want to go back home again to where the sun is.

So and and even if you're not from a sunny place, you can also feel that that seasonal depression, when the sun goes away, you need the sunshine.

Okay. So let's let's talk a little bit about what has been out of all the things that we have been through and gone through. What do you think has been your biggest challenge in moving here to Canada up until now? Like what do you think has been the hardest part for you?

I Think professionally speaking, finding a job that I like and that I enjoy is probably one of the hardest ones. As you were mentioning before. And Canada has its very special own rules of who can work and where can you work. So careers like medical careers, educational careers, which is the closest that we're on, my work permit, have a lot of issues. Even inside Canada, there are issues between moving from one province to another one. If you want to work in those areas in that field of like health or or schools. So I was a teacher in Mexico for many, many years.

I was a teacher in high school. I was an English teacher and I was a teacher. you when you met me. I was a teacher in kindergarten. I was an English teacher. And then I made a pause and I went into corporate world for a while. Like ten years. And then I went back to being a teacher For the last five years we lived in Mexico. So It's been very difficult because here they have like their own standards. I don't want to say that they don't care about your career, have their own standards, and they have what they think it's been working for them.

And as I was telling, even if you move from a province to we live in the province of British Columbia, so if you move, for example, from Nova Scotia to B.C., you still have to struggle with revalidating your or taking certain courses or so you get. Like I have friends with me when I was working in another area in the field of education that we're also teachers in in other provinces, and they had to go through different works here because they have to do more school or stuff like that to be teachers in here.

So it is not exclusively for immigrants. It's it's just the way the system is in Canada. So we have a lot of friends that they have masters and doctorates in their countries and they were working here painting houses or doing other stuff because that's what they had to do. At the beginning. It was the same for me. I was a teacher back in Mexico. I had my own business of cake decorating. I made cakes and when I moved here I couldn't do any of both because you have a certification for food to work in that field and you and I had to have a special certification here to work as a teacher in B.C.,

So I needed to make money. Like right away. I needed to start supporting my family because as we told you, our money in the bag was running out. So remember that I told you that because of my depression, I used to go a lot to shop for her, our home and making it nice to see if I will like it better here.

Well, from from seeing me there quite often in the mall, one of the managers offered me a job at that store and they said, Well, you're here quite often. Would you like to join and work for the store and you will get an employee discount? And I was like, Oh, that sounds attractive. Let's do it. It was my very first time working for retail. Retail is working in stores and a department store. It was my very, very first time I was really excited. Everything was new. I was learning a lot. I work, as I told you before Inc, where I was working for a bank in Mexico, an international bank, and that experience helped me a lot for this work in retail.

I, I have work in a team of collect collections and all that stuff and that gave me a lot of experience to work in. Is enough experience to work my way up in in retail.

So I came in as a part time like store general person. So I was doing a lot of stuff. I used to go early in the morning, unpack everything from the truck, putting things away when I had been a teacher, you know, and this is completely different fields and I had no experience, but I was enjoying it.

I was really enjoying it. I made it to work so I couldn't be picky. And that's how I did it. Like in in weeks, my the store manager came and told me, You know what? I think you have a future here. Why don't you accept a job full time? And I accepted the job full time. That included some benefits. When you are full time, I included some benefits.

After a few months later, they well, after a couple of weeks actually, from accepting the full time job, that was the next step for me to be a team leader, a supervisor. They started offering me, you should be supervisor. I didn't want to be a supervisor because I wanted to be able to say, oh, I cannot work today, you know, because I had the kids. By this time the kids were still doing home school. So we were kind of like we had very different shifts. Aaron and I that's another thing that I do probably will have to face that in order for if you have a family with little kids, you're probably going to have to find jobs with very different shifts.

Like Aaron's work was from four in the afternoon to midnight, and my work was unpacking the truck to the first point of sale. So it was from like six in the morning, six in the morning to two in the afternoon, I think it was. So we had we had lunch together that was a good thing because nobody, not all the couples can do that, but it was completely opposite our, our our schedule. So he will be with the kids in the morning. I will be with the kids. And the whole afternoon.

That worked for us for quite a while. Then they offered me to be a supervisor. The only area where I could not change my schedule was as a back door supervisor, which is the the one in charge of the being the supervisor of the warehouse. So I would be in charge of unpacking the, the, the trucks every morning, making sure that all of the merchandise go out, hanging the clothes properly. It was a lot of like pre-production kind of thing before all of the articles hit the floor.

I really, really liked that job, actually. It was very fun. I was starting to make a little bit more money. My benefits were very, very good at that time, but still I was not happy because I was not doing what I think I was called in the life in life to do, which is being a teacher. But as I go to work as a teacher, so I was it was we were still in the process of the of the permanent residence. So we got to a point I got hurt. I got hurt my work and I had a long recovery because I hurt my knee during that time. I

kind of like, okay, no, I really need to do something else. During that time, I got my permanent residence and I was able to go to school now because if without my permanent residence, I was able to go to school with that special permit that we got. But I wasn't able to get the the rate of a resident of a permanent resident or a Canadian. I had to pay as international student. And I don't know if this is in all provinces, but international students pay like the double or even sometimes the triple of what you will pay as a as a citizen. So it was not an option for me at that moment to go to school. And as soon as I got my my permanent residence, I quit my job. We talked about it. It was a good move at that moment. And I went to school so I said, okay, what is the closest thing that can get me into a school to work? So I made I was thinking between early childhood education and education assistant

So I went for educational assistant to school. It was a year program,

including practicum, so I had a lot of fun. It was not difficult because I was already a teacher. So a lot of the things that I had to go through in school, I already knew about them. It was it was a good time. It was not it was a stress in the fact that we had a lot to read. Not too many, not too much time to do it. And I had to. I spent a lot of sleepless nights reading and doing work for my school, but it was all worth it. I got my diploma. I was able to go into school and I don't know what's the minimum wage in all of the places around Canada, in all of the provinces, around Canada.

But here in B.C. at that time, the minimum wage was $15 the hour. When I left my supervising job, I was making somewhere around 18 or $19 an hour. And as an educational assistant, I was going to start earning around $21 the hour. So it was a big shift from $15 to $21. It was closer to what I was doing. That's what I thought.

And I started working like as soon as I and there's such a shortage of educational staff in B.C., I think in all Canada, but especially in B.C., that even before I got my diploma in my hand, I was already hired as an EA. I think it was my last day of school was, let's say, November the fifth. I went to ask for the job on November the sixth and I was hired by November the eighth, something like that. It was like super fast. So I was I was hired immediately. They wanted me to start their job right away. And I said, You know what I need? Give me some some time. I'll start in January. When the new semester starts, I'll start. They said yes. So I started in January.

Educational assistant here in the public school has two face a lot of behavioral issues with the kids. So there are you do you help kids that have certain needs so you help kids with academic challenges. You help kids with intellectual challenges, with behavioral challenges, with some health challenges. So you can actually be working with kids that need to be changed. Diaper Even if they're in in high school because it happens. So you have to it's kind of like you are there to help them to learn, but it's more like a combination between a nurse, a nanny and a teacher in a lower not degree, but in a lower sense of responsibility, because you don't have to plan a lot of things. You're just planning for one individual, sometimes two, depending on what it's your class, How big is your class? If you're rotating from class to class. But it becomes really tiring at some time, at some point. And I'm I was not getting younger, right? I was getting older every year and it was getting harder for me to challenge with some kids that were challenging.

So there was a point that I said, okay, I cannot do this anymore. So I talked to Erin and we agreed to stop that job and start looking for something else. It was not immediately this is I'm talking that I was in that job for like, what, four years? Five years?

So it was we were praying lots. We were asking for help, superior help we needed. And we got to a point that one of my friends told me, you know what, in your son's school, they're needing a Spanish teacher. Why don't you apply? And I went and look and I saw their requirements and I said, They're going to give me a yes. But because I don't have a ballet degree here and I didn't apply because I was afraid.

And when I said, okay, I'll do it. But the post was not there any longer. But there was this opening of being an Anglo teacher, which is a it's English learners, English language learners. So I will be teaching English to international students. So I went to the high school, I had my interview, I had an amazing click with the with the person that was in charge of the of the department.

They took a while. I was very nervous because I already decided that I was going to leave that other job and they hired me. They hired me. I think it was

mid-December. I had already given my two weeks notice having faith that I was going to get the job or I. I was like, I'm done.

So in January, as soon as we came back to school, I started job. I was really happy. I was very it was completely different. I didn't have to deal with any behavioral stuff or health issues. I was going to teach. I was going to support kids with their academic and all this stuff. And when I was already there, there was an opportunity to to teach one of the higher Spanish levels. The teacher that was a Spanish teacher here is not a native Spanish speaker, so she didn't feel very confident to teach that higher level. And then I realized that I some things sometimes some places that there are ways around things. So I don't have a teacher degree bullet here, but I do have a teacher degree and I do have all these papers from medication that I taken in Canada, but they were enough for me to request for a letter, a special letter and private school. So you can do this, a special letter. If I have the skills to perform this classes, they will authorize it.

So when you arrived in Canada and first of all, thank you so much for sharing your long journey. It's been a journey. It has been a big journey from going from working in retail to stepping into finally what you were used to doing and what you are really good at doing, which is being a teacher. It's been like a eight year or so journey from retail to what you're doing now as a teacher.

When you came to Canada and long before you came to Canada, you were already speaking English fluently when you arrived here, were there any times where you get into conversation with people who are from around who are local and you just weren't able to follow what they were saying, even though you you were fluent in English. Were there moments where you felt like, do I really do I really know English?

Yes. There were many times, especially in retail, when I was having to deal with customers, I noticed it's very generational. There are I think it's harder to understand people that are not because of their their age, but because of their vocabulary. People that are a little bit older, like I'll say, 60 and up. They have different ways to say things, to call things, to mention things. People that are around their age or younger, younger. It's also hard for me to understand sometimes, even that I work in a school. There are words that are like, Why don't they talk? You know? But it does make you feel like you don't speak English. And there's another thing. You have a bilingual brain. So even though you are experience and I was an English teacher and probably you will say that I don't have a thick accent because I've been speaking English probably most of my life, because the fact that I have family that lives in the States and that we spent summers, entire summers in the States and in Tijuana, that I don't have a strong accent, although there's words where you will see it every now and then, period. Sorry. And even like that, there's sometimes that you as a bilingual person, I feel like your brain feels tired. You know, like there's sometimes that you cannot disconnect. You're following the conversation, but for your brain can be sometimes way too much. You kind of like disconnect for seconds and there's times where you're like, Well, I'm not following this, but it's I think it's that bilingual brain that does that. You're making so much effort to try to understand a language that is not the wonder you're used to. That is the one the other one is we didn't have too many Latino friends when we arrived because there was not many Latinos. But in the feudal past years, there's been a higher volume of people immigrating from Latin America to Canada. But we have now a community of Latino people that are around us. And what happens to me is that when I'm around them, I speak Spanish with them. And then to switch back into English, like, for example, this this community happens to be also part of our church. So sometimes we are outside after the ceremony of the church talking on the on the whole with people in Spanish. And then I have to switch back immediately into English because there's another person asking me something else. And they do not speak Spanish because they're Canadian. And that changing of gears in my brain sometimes is hard, that it takes me a while to go back into understanding everything that they say. But like normally what happens to me? What would you say? Person And thank you for sharing that. By the way, what would you say for someone who may be English isn't their first language and they arrive here thinking that they have you know, maybe they've been studying English in their home country for a while and they feel confident in their abilities when they're in their home country. But it's a very common thing to experience is when you when you actually start using English on a day to day basis and in a place where there really is in another option where it's English or it's English, you can find yourself feeling lost, discouraged, like maybe wondering, maybe I don't really understand this and maybe I can't make myself understood, which is another issue. Like sometimes I know we've talked about it often where you've your accent isn't very strong and maybe I'm just used to to your accent and I don't register it anymore. But. But you've shared with me many times where you've tried to say something to like when you were working in, in that store in the retail area where you would be talking to a customer. But as soon as they hear your accent, it's like they they they stop understanding English and they give it's hard. That interaction becomes difficult just because there's an accent involved. I wonder if there's anything that you that that you learned along the way from being here or. Yeah. That maybe you could pass along to someone who is just getting started, who maybe is feeling that discouragement, maybe feeling like, Oh geez, oh my English is it's nothing here. I don't know what to do. What would you say to that? To that humble soul that's trying their best, but it's just feeling lost. It will be summed up in a word patience. Just patience. Don't give up. You will see within time and not too much time because you are immersed in here. don't give up and try your best, even though that you want to feel at home and you want to create a community with and within your community, in your country, in a different country, try to expose yourself as as you can to the culture and to the to the English of that country. Because in Canada, for example, you might find a lot of if you are from India and you're listening to this because you will find a lot of people that come from India, but keeping your keeping yourself in your community most of the time is not going to help you to immerse in the real English, you know, And that's that's something that I it's my tip Like we have a Latin community. Yeah, but if I will spend all of my time with them, I probably will will forget most of my English because the language is

expressing yourself and doing it over and over and over. And yes, I had a lot of trouble in the beginning. I think I don't have a strong accent, but people, as soon as they saw my face that, my skin colour, it's different. They immediately kind of had this blockage in their head and I not. Is that that happened to you when you were in Mexico? You speak Spanish, you Spanish fluently, even with an accent, but you speak very fluently Spanish. And as soon as I sell blonde hair, green eyes with cats, they were like, I don't understand. And I like to keep speaking perfect Spanish. You know, it's it was the same with me. And as they saw that I was a little bit darker skinned, darker, dark eyes with a little bit of an accent, I would be like, Oh, I don't understand what you're saying. It's also cultural, so don't give up. Don tried your best to not just surround yourself with people from your culture or your or your language because it is important for you to be immersed in the culture. And the language in Canada is very important. And within time, very short time you will see that your brain has a great memory and they will start connecting the dots. Yeah, that's very good advice. And on this podcast, we've talked about that before, that whole don't create a bubble around yourself that is your own culture. And we have very good friends who have lived here longer than we have like decades and they still don't speak English. There's with their first language and now, now they're really trying to learn English. But it's it's a very slow process for them. And so just because you're living an English speaking country doesn't mean that your your English is automatically going to get better or to improve you like what Ana was saying, you need to intentionally surround yourself with with other English speakers and with the culture so that you are growing and learning and like. But she also said, be patient. It it it can a little bit of time to get used to it.

I guess we're going to start winding down this a little bit. But what would you say has helped you the most in establishing your life here? Connections, connections. for us has been connections through to church, through our work through people that had helped us, that we have very we give a big value to friendships. And sometimes those friendships are not meant to be lasting, but they happen in the right moment, at the right place and connections are important. And that's why it's important not to only hang out with people that you feel okay with it. It is important to have that kind of people in your life, but but not always. Try to talk to other people. Try to make new friends. Wherever you you never know really when you're going to find that connection. That was important at the moment that you needed it.

I that's what I think it's it's important that to create a community where you are. I really agree with that. You need to have people around you for those dark days. When you want to give up, you need to have someone to talk to. And if you're married and you're come with your spouse, you still need friends, you need people around you that you can lean on, that you can connect with both on your own and together as a couple. Having friends like that has really helped us and we've been able to be a support for for others too. So it goes both ways, offering that kind of support, I guess.

Finally, I wonder if you could speak to the person, maybe you the one who's listening to this podcast, maybe you are feeling discouraged, maybe you are feeling like giving up. Maybe you've been working hard to be here in Canada and it's just hard. You're missing home. You're kind of questioning yourself if you've made the right choice, maybe it's not turning out the way you thought it would. Maybe it's harder than what you thought it would be. Or maybe you knew it was going to be hard. But it it's just taking such a long time. I wonder and if you could just give a final word of encouragement or anything that you have learned through these this long process yourself that maybe has helped you, that you can maybe encourage the person who's just having a hard time?

Well, I do believe that we are created in mind soul and body, and it's important to take care of all those areas in your life. So don't stop learning. Keep your mind busy, because when you have your mind set up for sadness, for all these discouraged to occupy the biggest part of that mind is it's going to it's going to do it. You know, it's going to really hurt you badly. Especially like I was telling the weather can be a big thing that happened and then you feel like that. And so you have a chance to learn if you are on your way to her. If you came here with a with a student visa, great. Keep learning. Keep doing things like that. If you are on your process of PR, as soon as you get your PR study something and even if you are like in a budget, like if you can do little things like learning English, like going to a community center to learn English, things like that, keep your mind occupied, read books, try to make things that that help you.

The body. It's super important to if you can walk when it's walkable, whether it's try to do that like during the summer and part of the fall, I try to walk outside as much as I can because I know that during the winter time I'm not going to be able because I don't like to be outside when it's winter time. So try to walk, try to do things for your body, try to keep yourself healthy and for your soul to like. It's important the way that have a connection to to your faith, whatever your faith is. Those are the things that have helped me start to get strong here because I have hit rock bottom sometimes here in my I feel like we are super blessed because we have family, your family around or we have friends. We live in a first world country and and we have it. Oh, it might seem like we have it all, but there's things that can hit you really strong. And I have hit hard like rock bottom here. So with all of these things to create your community, that's one of the things that have helped us the most.

My faith and the community around us, our friends have been such an important part of me not feeling so sometimes and taking paying attention to your body. I discovered that I had diabetes while I was here in Canada and able to go to the doctor, had the right medications it in the right way. It had helped me a lot. It's super control is super manage, but you have to work on it too.

So basically patience. There is, even though we have not reached success yet here, it feels like there are ways. And if you feel frustrated, for example, like me, because you cannot work in your in the field that you had your may, your or your degree from your country don't give up. There's ways you can start looking for validating your your school diplomas or maybe studying a diploma course, And something like an entry point to that area. Like I gave you my example because and there's probably the people found that easier than me it's just the way that I did it but don't give up There's always a way around the corner and find the right door that you need to go in.

someone wanted to connect with you, is there a way that they could find you online somewhere like maybe an Instagram account or. Yeah. Is there some way that that they could connect with you? Yeah. Another way that I had survived here is finding a hobby, a job, a a way to express my myself. And one of the ways to do it is through a painting. I do I have a, um, an Instagram account with some of the things that I like to paint and draw. I haven't paid too much attention to it, but you can you can reach me from there too. You can send me a direct message or, or we can connect like that. So my, my Instagram account is @bold.bee.creations.

@bold.bee.creations and we'll be sure to put a link to that in our show notes. So if you are wanting to see Anna's wonderful artwork and I don't just say that because she's my lovely wife, but art has been an important part of, of your coping and surviving here and maybe that's something that might help some of our audience because that's something that you used to do a lot of is run art, uh, like Mini tutorials and you had a group of people coming.

Unfortunately, you had your account hacked and that really brought you down. But maybe, maybe this conversation will be the, the impetus of you getting going again, because that was something that was really cool that you would, you used to do. And I know it helped a lot of people to get through their through their things as well.

So please, if you've enjoyed listening to Anna share about her journey, reach out, connect with her on her Instagram. She would love to hear from you and let her know that you heard her here on the podcast. And and that's it for this this episode. Thank you so much for listening you for being a part of our our podcast community. And Anna, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. I'll look forward to inviting you back again some time. Thank you. It was my pleasure to be here and sorry if I got like a little bit here. That's what editing is for. Well. Have a good weekend. We'll be back in touch next Tuesday. Bye bye.

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