on the edge

My Journey from a 3rd World to Canada

People say you get to know who is there for you in times of need. Well, I'm currently learning that the hard way.

Backtrack a couple of months ago, April 8th to be exact, when I got on a plane and landed in Canada. My high school friend, conveniently named Emmanuel as well, offered me a place to crash at his home for a month and two weeks. Equipped with only a visitor visa and a dream for the future, I ventured into the unknown land.

Back home, I left a company I’d been running for 12 years, a two-bedroom house fully furnished with a 65-inch TV, a 7.2 surround sound system with Dolby Atmos, a kitchen the size of entire apartments in Toronto, a car, two maids, a PA, and an office on the top floor of the newest, shiniest building on my street. And at this point, most of you must be thinking, what a dumb decision to leave all that behind. Oh, did I mention my supermodel-looking, tall, thin Rwandese girlfriend? Yeah, life was good.

But I wanted more. In my 30s, self-employed, doing well for myself, I felt like I was wasting away. What brought on this feeling, you ask?

Back in August 2021, I lost the only person I truly cared about to COVID—my beloved aunt, who raised and schooled me. She was everything to me. The news of her passing came while I was on a trip to a refugee settlement in a district called Adjumani, delivering items for a non-profit client. I didn’t turn back. I delivered the items and took some time to process things alone. Because truth be told, when you lose a loved one, you don't get time to process it on that first day. So, I'm glad I was far from everyone and everything for a day and had time to grieve and process things my way. I shed tears on the bus back to town that I couldn’t even control, but that's OK—those were strangers who will never see me again. I got off halfway and made my way to my home village, the burial site, where we had a small COVID-safe burial. If you lost anyone during that time, you know what those were like. That was that, and everyone made their way back to their lives.

At the end of that year, I took a trip to Dubai in December to see the World Expo 2020. Having heard all about it from Dubai One and other Dubai channels on my Nilesat Dish TV, I figured I’d go see what it was all about. Not knowing what to expect, I think I literally Plato-caved myself into my reality not being enough. Before this, I had never really experienced a first world, let alone to the levels at which Dubai does the whole first-world thing. Seeing things on TV isn’t the same as actually being there. It was insane. The city alone was beyond anything I’d ever seen. But what got me most was how everything worked—the systems, the people doing their jobs and being at their posts, help desks actually helping you. I could go on and on. One of those days, I made my way to the expo—a huge city built from scratch in the middle of the desert for different countries to showcase what they got. The place was massive. I didn’t even see half of it, yet I went there twice. Hopping around the different pavilions from different countries was eye-opening. From the UK pavilion showcasing some insane AI thing, to the America pavilion that had a real moon rock you could touch and a to scale model of the Opportunity rover, to these insanely huge showcases and events of innovations just happening in and around the expo. It showed me, like the prisoner who walks out of Plato's cave, that my reality back home was not a lie but just too limited. I didn’t realize it at the time, strolling around the expo, but that’s exactly what was happening.

My world was never the same. You see, I come from a third world—a third world that has had a dictator ruling us for close to 40 years now. I remember landing at our "international airport" and for the first time seeing it for what it is. I felt so many emotions: disappointment, anger, impatience, fear, disgust, worry, and more. I remember driving back home and realizing I hadn’t seen a car emit any fumes in Dubai. Back home, that was the order of the day. I was driving on our best road, but it now looked so small.

Before this, I had only traveled to South Sudan, a worse-off war-torn country where I worked as an IT admin for a German firm for a year and some months, immediately after my graduation. So, experiencing the level of order, organization, cleanliness, and functioning systems and cities in Dubai and the expo was a reality-changer. I had always low-key felt that my home country wasn't it, that whatever it is or was, however we were supposed to experience this thing called life, the country I was in wasn’t it. But I had never known anything else, so I just ignored that recurrent hunch and thought. Until I went to Dubai and realized I was right—there was more. I had just never experienced it to understand it. Again, watching things on TV is different from experiencing them. And I know you must be thinking, "Oh wow, what a villager." But mind you, there are so many things on this planet you still haven’t yet experienced that might shock you and throw you into a frenzy and disorient your reality.

Anyway, moving on. So after experiencing the World Expo, having seen what other nations are capable of, are currently working on and heading towards—mind you, this was after lockdown, so every country at that expo brought their A-game—I went back home, and my reality was never the same. Nothing made sense. Everything around me was just annoying. And for the first time ever in my life, I saw my third-world dictator-run nation for what it is—a shithole. Plato's cave prisoner was finally back to the cave and seen it for what it is and was all this while.

Panicked and not sure what to do, I did what I have always done since 2014—I studied. I went on YouTube and added to my skill set. Mind you, I’d been running a tech firm that started out in my university's first year in 2011 as an ICT company designing websites and apps for clients. Four years later, in 2015, we ventured into branding, design, and print production. And four years after that, in 2018, we ventured into supply chain management for non-profits. So I had some skills and experience on my hands, but I knew that was not going to be enough.

Having seen a lot of AI talk and display at the Expo, I'd seen  and known that AI was coming and was coming to stay. I decided to look more into it, finding lectures on MIT’s OCW YouTube channel and othere learning resources and going down that path.  The journey took interesting turns along the way, with articles published about me in MIT news and all over the globe, and me ending up doing a podcast for MIT, but that’s another story for another day. In the midst of all this, I still felt like my environment was not enough, that I needed more. And no matter how much I tried to love the cave again, I could not unsee what I had seen, the shadow projection of reality no longer made sense to me.

So I kept studying, upskilling, and finding ways to move to a first-world nation. I tried applying to schools, but that was too expensive. I am an only child raised by single women all my life—a single mother for my younger years, a single grandmother, and my single aunt from my primary years into adulthood. We were poor, but don’t get me wrong though, I am grateful because I believe I had a nice life compared to the rest of my environment. I attended the best schools in the nation and went to the best university in the country on an academic scholarship, where I studied information systems, a cutting-edge field at the time. So it’s not bad. How my aunt pulled it off, despite only being a middle-to-low-class earner with no support, I have no idea. But you kind of now get why I owed her everything. Despite all that, I still couldn’t afford the tuition most first-world countries have. Because as much as I’d built some wealth, it was not generational wealth, and at the end of the day, I was in a poor third world. No matter how rich you might be there, it’s nothing compared to serious nations.

So fast forward approximately three years. I have left everything behind and am in Canada. The first month is good, obviously. My rich software engineer friend is showing me around. He’s a very nice guy, so he’s paying for most things. We take trips to Montreal and all that. In Toronto, he lived in the rich, posh neighborhoods right next to the lakes—stunning views, early morning sunrises, everything you can imagine, basically the good life. I, on the other hand, am crashing at his place, still trying to figure out what to do or how I can stay in this nation that for the first time ever has given me some peace of mind and made me feel like I could call this place home.

What I didn’t mention was after coming back from Dubai, I fell into a deep depression. You can trust that when the prisoner goes back to Plato’s cave, he is not going to be all jolly and happy and full of sunshine and rainbows, because he now knows he is in a cave and everything he knew and used to call reality was a lie. I can tell you now, 2021 to early 2024 were the most depressing years of my life. I got deep into weed use. Luckily it was just edibles, but I was taking dosages that make me wonder how my brain is still functioning.

Here I am in Canada, month two, and now I actually have to find work. If you know anything about this nation, it’s that… let me put it this way: I got this thought last night when I woke up randomly and failed to go back to sleep. I’m writing this on June 4th at 17:40, by the way. So, you know that rich relative, aunt or uncle, who talks nicely, always sounds like an angel who saves everyone, and has a nice mansion you wish you could live in? When they give speeches at family gatherings, they sound like the epitome of being human: perfect family, perfect kids, perfect two and a half dogs, perfect manners, perfect teeth.

They say things like, "If you ever need help, just call me. I’d be more than happy to help," and such. When in reality, they never actually walk that talk. When you’re actually down on your luck or in a fix and need their help, they never come through. They always give you some perfect speech about it, talking nicely like they want to and all that, but when you actually think about it or trace back, they have never given you any money, never picked you up when in a fix, or never even let you sleep in that mansion of theirs. They have never even recommended or at least fixed you in a job, claiming things like, "You don’t have the qualifications or documents," when in reality, we all know that’s just all BS.

That’s what I feel like Canada and Canadians are at this point and stage. Everyone is nice, they say sorry, they’re polite, they will talk with you, and listen to you. Which I’m not saying is bad—it’s nice and useful in its own way. But when you actually need help, no one will actually walk that talk. Like, yes, thanks for the chat, but dude, I’m starving and need a job, I’m sure you know someone who could use my skills. I mean, homeless shelters won’t even help you if you don’t have papers for God’s sake. Strange. Anyway, I could be wrong—no, I know I am wrong and I’m just ranting—but hey, that’s how I feel right now. Could that change tomorrow? Yes. Doesn’t negate the fact that this is what my experience is like at this moment. I now understand why most people from poor nations, mainly Africa and other third-world Asian nations, take the asylum route. Because it at least gets you papers faster, and you can now qualify to sleep in a homeless shelter. Yeah, Canada!  

Anyways, sorry.

So why the edge? Remember how I left a PA, two maids and a Miss Rwanda-looking girlfriend? like seriously, google how Miss Rwandese usually look; she looks exactly like that. You know what, let me do that for you even. Haa! Bing search!, didnt expect that now did you?. Thats what you get for letting strangers search up thing for you. Well, in my 3rd world, it’s a dog-eat-dog kind of world. Walk away from your home and business, and everyone wants a piece. Safe to say, you lose them pretty quickly. Out of sight, out of mind—well, out of place, out of possession. 

The first thing to close was my office. My business was pretty much automated at this point, and all I needed was someone to just monitor people and operations and show face. I asked my Miss Universe girlfriend to take over, but she had plans of her own. She wanted to go and become a flight attendant. I don’t blame her; we all have our goals in life, so I let her be. She finished the test and passed, by the way. I tried to tell her that now she’s done, maybe go back and run the business and look after my home for a while. Still no. So I relaxed on that topic. 

I tried to get some friends to take over management, but again, it’s a 40-year dictatorship-run nation. Most people at this point are on their own survival motives and don’t really have time to sit and look after your kid—*cough* company—because everyone is trying to start and grow their own. Unless I paid them insane money that would motivate them not to scavenge everything that was left—money my company couldn’t afford, or any small-to-medium business in the country for that matter. Most medium to even large firms where I’m from are run by the owners, and the moment the owner dies, that’s it for the business. It’s only foreign banks and telecom companies that have survived this trend over the years. Even big major rich lords' empires crash the moment they die. There’s also the issue of trust. “When everyone is trying to survive and not die, morality is a luxury.”

My PA, God bless her soul, is still running things, executing orders, and delivering to clients. But she was too inexperienced to run the whole company and understand all that was going on. On the client side, again, the third world’s way of doing things is that if I don’t see you, I move on to the next service provider. It’s a very "handshake"-driven business environment. So if there’s no hand to shake, well, you can imagine how long that hand will be stretched out for you. So anyway,after some months, my office was closed.

My house? Well, that’s why I even started writing this. Before I left, I offered my cousin, my aunt’s only son, to come and stay in the house, but he declined for fear of "not being able to afford meals in town". Yeah, things are that tight in my family; we really are poor. Then I offered it to a friend to stay in and pay rent, a friend from South Sudan who was very instrumental in my coming to Canada. I felt this was a nice way to pay back the favor, but he was in another country. And if getting someone to move from the village (my cousin) is hard, now imagine moving from another country. So that didn’t work out. The house remained empty for two months, with bills accumulating. I thought of putting it up for Airbnb, but again, third world: out of sight, out of possession of goods. So yeah, that TV wouldn’t last past three clients. And remember again, systems don’t work, people don’t work, governments don’t work, nothing works.

Why am I feeling on edge? Sorry am repeating myself.
Well, because I am now going into my third month in Toronto, with no job or any prospects. My landlady back home told me she’s going to sell my things, meaning I will be literally homeless if I go back. And I know you are probably thinking I could go back to my parents' home. Well, she died, remember, and I remained with no family in town. She did leave an old unfinished house in the village far away. But my grandma, my other aunt, that aunt’s kid, and that kid’s ten thousand kids live there now. So, yeah. And yes, I’m from Africa; people give birth to many children.

So here I am in a city where I know only one person, can’t even get a warehouse job because I don’t have documentation. And will most likely not only be homeless, but homeless in two countries. Haaa, living the dream! 

And again, you are probably saying, "Why didn’t you get documentation before you left and got on a pla..."  Look, I was sold the Canadian dream and I bought it, alright? That government site said you can change the visitor visa to a work permit when here. Plus, I thought getting a job would be easy. And plus, I am six feet two inches; I’m a large human being and I thought, worst come to worst, I will go carry some heavy things or do some large human being jobs for a while. Little did I know, having employed people for 12 years and having a degree in information systems is not enough for even that. Also, you google or look up Canada and see what they’re always saying. It’s always stuff like, “Canada needs more people, there’s opportunity, yada yada yada.” I believed them. I bought the dream they sold me. What do you want me to say? I’m only human.

So what's the point of all this? I don’t know. I actually paused for a while before writing that because honestly, I don’t know. Did I make a huge mistake leaving everything behind to try and reach for more? Probably yes, most likely definitely. Will I make it in Toronto or will I have to go back home and be homeless and probably beg one of my exes for a place to crash? Only time will tell.

I don’t expect anyone to read this, by the way. But if you are, then thanks for reading this far and tune in next time for more of "Emmanuel’s Fate and or Dumb Life Decisions."

Enjoy the rest of your day.