First, the immigration paperwork is DONE. I think. I hope. I hope I did it right. I hope we were convincing enough so that Immigration Canada thinks that Mathieu and I are for real, so I can see my husband again soon. If anyone has immigration paperwork advice, now's the time to give it. I sent everything home to my parents... which was a hoot.
We went to DHL this week (Tuesday) because there's someone at our Regional Office in Ghana who's going home to Toronto on Sunday. I figured, it'll be cheaper to send it to Ghana then to send it to Toronto, and far more secure, so let's go that route.
Package to Ghana from Benin: 68000F CFA ($161cad) and the package will arrive on Friday at the latest.
Package to Canada from Benin: 71000F CFA ($168cad) and the package could be there as early as Thursday, and at the latest by Monday. RIDICULOUS.
It's a fairly big package full of immigration-worthy wedding pictures, relationship pictures, and 109 pages of forms, phone bills, emails, passports, etc.
I know it's 109 pages because we had to copy the entire file before we sent it. And I stood there as she copied page 1, opened the lid, took page 1 out, put in page 2, made sure it was in the corner, closed the lid, hit print. If print didn't work, she would flip the photocopier on and off really quick and hit print again. Opened the lid, took out page 2, put in page 3, etc. etc. ETC. At the end I swore I would never be angry at the photocopiers at work ever again.
I love photocopiers with feeders!
So needless to say, I sent the immigration package straight home to MOM&DAD where they'll put their teacher eyes on it and hopefully catch any glaring bureaucratic mistakes (and hopefully my mom won't pay too close attention to my spelling and grammar...)
Less than ONE MONTH to go before I get on a plane to go home. I had a bit of a fit last night thinking about it. In one month I get on a plane by myself and set out to settle down again in Toronto.
Mixed emotions, as you can well imagine. I can't wait to have a huge salad made of fresh vegetables, I can't wait to see my friends, to walk around Toronto's streets, but I'm not so eager to come home to an empty apartment, and to talk to Mathieu through a webcam and on our crappy cellphones for months.
Life in Benin is hard and getting more and more frustrating, if anything. I love being with Mathieu, but I can't wait to get out of this country. I care for these people, I care that their children are not in school and that most everyone lives way under the poverty line. But I just can't be here anymore.
One month is going to go by too fast, and not fast enough. But probably too fast. 4 weekends, 28 days. sigh.
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