Layla Rahmeh

"I’ve been in Fredericton for 2 months and 17 days. I came to New Brunswick about 4 years and 8 months now, I came with a visiting visa to see my brother... I came from Syria. You might be familiar with what is going on in Syria. So I came thinking that the war would end within a couple of months. I had escaped from where I came because I was an activist there and my name is now on the border so I can’t go back to Syria. I had already sent my daughter before because I was worried about her safety because the threats, they were threatening me with her. My plan was that I would put her through school here, I would leave her here with my brother and go back. My plan did not work. By the time I was supposed to go back, things were still intense so my manager said, “No, you can just stay there for another month.” I stayed for another month. By the time I decided I was going to go back the airport was already hit, there were no flights back to Syria. By then it was September, school was starting. My daughter was 16 and she was supposed to go to 11th grade. People my brother knew could accept her into school conditionally until we got our status; because we were still visitors she could not go to school otherwise. The fastest way was to stay here was asylum. I was very unaccepting of the fact that I would ask for asylum. But if I wanted to be a permanent resident here, it would take too long. I would need a lawyer and I would have to pay a lot of money to be accepted as a permanent resident and that would take forever. The fastest way was asylum though I hated the idea, and the word refugee claimant was heartbreaking and killing me. What is a refugee claimant, like how come? I had a wonderful life back home: I had my job, I had my friends, I had my family, I had my house, I had everything. And now I had nothing. I had no money, I had no job. I had been independent all of my life. I had been a single parent for all of [my daughter's] life, at least since she was 3 years old. We were totally independent so it was so hard for me to ask for help. I applied for a work permit, it took about 6 or 7 months before I got my work permit and it took me another 3 months to find a job. I was applying even before I got my work permit. I was in survival mode, I don’t know what kept me going but I was thinking I have to find a way and if I give up now, my daughter will give up and I don’t want her to give up. I started working part-time. Both of us were living on the income I got, it was like nearly $650/month for both of us. We would be walking around until I found a way to rent a room. We were carrying our bags behind us like gypsies in the snow, it was a very tough beginning. But I knew it would not last, I decided it shouldn’t last this way and I always told her the bad is gone and "I became a full-timer at my job, I was working at Sears, and then in another year I became head of the department. And then I met with a girl who asked me if I was interested to apply for a job with Xerox in sales. I went and applied and within one week I was hired and I was moved to part-time at Sears. So I’ve been working every day from 8:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night, including Saturdays and Sundays. I sold food in the market, I did everything I could so I could afford when Alma graduated [for her] to go to school. People were asking me “are you happy?” No, I’m not happy, of course I’m not happy. I’m grateful, yes. I’m thankful, yes. I’m safe, yes. But happy? The only place which is happy is home and I am not home. Given the fact that by then it was still the time when nobody really knew about refugees. There were no refugees here. Nobody really knew what we were going through, it wasn’t even in the media. It took me 3 years and 7 months before I became a permanent resident. It was so hard for me, and then they changed the law and I couldn’t become a citizen for another 5 years and everything was hard. I could only have my work permit to work in New Brunswick and my daughter went to Halifax for university and I could not go to work there to be close to her because my work permit is where I applied for my refugee status. There were so many limitations that I felt I had to work harder for. For 2 years, I gave up my work at sears because my work permit ended. Xerox were very considerate and generous, and they accepted the fact that I applied for my permanent residency and I applied to renew my work permit. Then, when the flow of the new refugees started coming, even before that, I started working with the YMCA and the Multicultural council and Multicultural center in Saint John and Fredericton about the settlement of the refugees. I felt I suffered a lot, I didn’t want them to suffer. I wanted to minimize all the hassle they would face and now I was like finally I’m going to see familiar faces, people who were coming from my country. I felt guilty at the time when I came that I left my people behind. So what I used to do before I started working, I would go to Starbucks in the Brunswick Square and sit there with my laptop that I had and I was doing media translations. I was working 24 over 24 doing translations. Then one of the guys from CBC noticed me and interviewed me while I was doing that. I was like living there the first 8 months before I got my work permit. I would see names of people I knew, people I had worked with, people that were activists with me that had been killed. I was not living here. I was here physically but my mind was not here. It was very, very hard. I was trying to deny that and it was not really helping my daughter. I had to wake up and see that I was not making that easier for her because I was always somewhere else. My mind and my heart were always somewhere else. Now I feel like I’ve started having friends, I know I have people that care for me and I have people that I really love here. Being away, you really need to start opening up. It’s part of me and that’s what I tell people now. I did not do the right thing. I closed the door on myself and I just wanted to be isolated; I chose to be isolated. But when I opened the door, people were stretching their hands and arms to me, but I wasn’t seeing that, and I didn’t want to accept that. Now I now I know that I have family because when you are in a different country, you need to build family."

tomorrow will be better. She would never believe me of course. She said “you always say that, I don’t know how you do it.” If I was alone I might not have been able to, but I had to. So I continued, and things started getting better."

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