the interview

There's not a good blog of immigrants without the clasic interview post.

We remind you is not necessary to hire a lawyer or migration expert to represent you. The process is quite simple, you can easily do it all by yourself.

We were notified of our interview two months before. This left us plenty of time to prepare ourselves for the interview. Me, being the main aplicant, were extra-nervous. And all due to what? To a failed attemp to visit my favorite uncle of the world in Spain.

I repeated myself: How come I'm going to get a permanent resident status when I could even go to Spain as a tourist?

There's when we met a true quebecker. He wrote us some mails for our peace of mind. Among other things discussed, he reminded us is not the same to attemp to travel to Canada than to Spain, taking account Canada's interested in welcoming immigrants every year.

The biggest and greatest thing of all? We spoke all the time in quebecker french (to our joy), cause all the time we had been studying standard french. I thank him even today (I'll probably be thankful forever) for giving me back my selftrust, the hope and the sleep I had been missing.

The big day arrived. We headed to Bogotá one day before the date, so we wouldn't look so tired after 10 hours of land-traveling. We used that day to repeat a thousand times the answers to our "sample" interview.

Our date was at 14 h. We left at 12h so we didn't get caught in a traffic jam. We arrived 45 minutes later. We were planning to have lunch near the embassy (that's what we thought)

We inmediatly went to the embassy but it was close (of course). We went to the mal in front of there. At the end we weren't able to lunch! We were way too nervous. So finally we ended up walking around. After all we were both looking really good in our suits.

13h45 we returned to the embassy. The girl in the reception made us wait a little while, then she introduced us to our "guide" a man whom all I can remember is that he was really really nice.

- We have to go to the hotel in front -he said- Because the conseiller didn't like our office here in the embassy.

What!!!! (I thought) That man has to be terrible!

We followed our guide in silence. We ended up going again to the mall we had been walking before for an hour.

We arrived to the hotel's lobby the gards immediatly ask us:

-Are you here for an immigration interview (what did betray us?)

-Yes we are

-We will anounce you

-Ok

The was a gard woman who had to search me. She asked me:

-Are you nervous?

-Very!

-Don't worry you'll see how everything turns out fine.

-Thanks.

We headed to the elevator, my husband grabbed my hand very strongly, trying to pass me his serenity and trust, with this bond no one could destroy...

Eternal minutes while waiting Mr. Terrible to open the door. Finally he opened:

-Buenas tardes doctor -said our guide-

-Buenos dias.

-Aca estan los candidatos, yo regreso a la embajada.

-Ok gracias.

We looked to each other very surprised. He speaks spanish!!! Great!!! But we didn't know that was all the spanish we were going to hear in the entire interview...

-Bonjour -said Mr. Terrible to us-

-Bonjour monsieur we answered in one voice.

After the introductions and all the interview began. Everything happened quite different to what we had pictured in the first place, but it was a beautiful surprise, Mr Terrible introduced himself so I could stop thinking of him as some kind of ogre, I was so mistaken he was in fact a really kind and understanding man. He spoke to us as if we were just kids, then as he realized we trully understood his words he start speaking faster, really quickly.

Oh people! We're so amazing! In only 40 minutes of conversation we were all comfortable, it felt like we have known each other for a very long time. To the point I dared to ask:

- Qu'est-ce que vous dérange de l'Ambassade?

- Le bruit!!! Il y a des bâtiments en construction juste a côté... on peut rien entendre!!

And it was true. There were buildings under construction right next to the embassy... we didn't think of that! Always thinking the worst...

And that was it the end of our interview. The conseiller congratulated us and even gave us a hug, he said he wouldn't forget us; we were moved, in the edge of bursting in tears, all our efforts, our dreams all had led us to hear this phrase:

"Vous avez très bien réussi, bravo! Soyez bienvenus à votre nouveau pays"

We didn't walk out... we felt we were flying! A new chapter of our lifes was ready to be written from that 18 september 2007...

We won´t forget you "non plus" Mr. Poisson...