Tiny Traveler, Big Adventures: Our Family Trip Overseas with Our Baby. Chapter-3

The YMCA of Northern Alberta operates as a philanthropic organization driven by a profound mission to nurture the holistic growth of countless individuals, fostering their well-being in aspects of spirituality, intellect, and physicality.

Harshika with her play school teacher

Since Harshika was loving William Lutsky Family branch of YMCA and hence we decided to enroll her to the same YMCA family for the play school. She was three when she started going for play school as well. It was September 2018 and her pre-school journey started along with swimming classes. I forgot to tell you that before joining the play school, in the month of August, she went to the summer camp as well. This summer camp, basically helps kids to make new friends, develop empathy, and improve their overall communication skills.

EPL Library

When it comes to children's knowledge, the library (EPL) plays a very important role and liked not only by adults, but kids as well.  She also took the advantage at the right time. She got into the habit of reading books just because she used to go to the library routinely every day. I still remember when the books she used to bring home, she mostly picked books related to animals, birds, and sports. Due to the good public transport in Edmonton, both of us used to travel by bus and train. I used to drop her in class at YMCA and got the opportunity of joining the yoga classes which used to be running in the same building. You can just say that two targets were hitting with one stone. 😊😊

Summer camp

Talking about Canada's education system, schooling is free for all students in the Canadian public-school system. In accordance with regional regulations and policies, high school students are obligated to fulfill compulsory education requirements until they reach either 16 or 18 years of age, contingent upon the specific province or territory they reside in.

There is one important thing in this country which I would like to highlight is “New-comer Centre” which helps in giving information about jobs, study, health etc. to the people who comes from other countries and seeking information. Free workshops get organized and anyone can join this workshop and use this experience as a reference while applying for a job. You can get volunteer work. Although, you will not get any salary for this, you still get an experience certificate which is very useful to get another new job in the same field.

I could not get advantage of these workshop because I was on a visitor visa. You should have work permit for doing any kind of work. This was not a major concern for me for a while as my daughter was very little and I was completely busy in taking care of her and did not get a time to think about doing any job. After some time, when I realized, my hubby helped me to get the work permit.  You must be having work permit in case you would like to work and earn some money. The best way to get a work is to become a permanent resident as there are certain limitation in the work permit as well. Once I received my work permit, first thing I did was applied for a driving learning license. Unfortunately, I could not do much because very soon Covid-19 pandemic started everywhere.

Canada's environment is clean and healthy, there is purity in the air which I have felt myself. It gives a good and healthy environment to the children and hence provides a supporting environment for raising kids. After living almost one year we moved from small condo (1 BHK) to big condo (2BHK) so that Harshika's get a large space for playing at home. It was a good change for us too as it is difficult to get out here in snowy weather and you need a big space at home.  All our neighbors were good and friendly by nature. we usually would meet in the nearby park in the summer season. The park had become the meeting center for all of us. She also became socialized and made new little friends. She loved to play different kinds of games with her friends. 

Third birthday of Harshika

We were very fortunate that we got good neighbors. This time we decided to celebrate Harshika's birthday with our neighbors. It was nothing less than a gift for her, she was looking very happy with all her friends. Really miss that evening even today. The collective memory remains vivid of the abundant enjoyment experienced by all.

While living in Edmonton we celebrated many festivals such as “Thanksgiving”, “Halloween”, “Christmas and New year”. Harshika especially liked the Halloween party, in which she loved to become a witch. 

Halloween

Christmas

I have lived in metro cities like Delhi, Bangalore, So there are auto, bus, cab etc. easily available to go anywhere, But here in this country, public transport such as  train, bus are good, but we always has to keep in mind the timing for public transport. Which is not very difficult task as there is an transportation app which help you in finding time and route of the bus and train on a real time basis, But sometimes it becomes difficult when we have to travel with kids. Cabs are a little expensive here. I was living in Alberta, so winter is difficult here, for which everyone must prepare mentally, the weather of British Columbia is better than Alberta. I would like to tell you one more thing here, every household work must be done by self like laundry, dishes, cleaning, taking care of children etc. There are no maid culture as human resources are very expensive.

My hubby was very fond of driving, so every Saturday, we used to go somewhere to visit. We had visited many places by car like “Water Park”, “Walmart”, “West Edmonton mall”, “Edmonton Valley Zoo”, “Art Gallery of Alberta”, various parks and so many other places. 

Vancouver acquarium

We had a long drive and visited Calgary and Banff. In Banff, we found ourselves surrounded by a beauty that is indescribable. It is a beautiful place and we spent a lot of time doing different sightseeing events and lots of outdoor activities. We also had gone for a trip to Vancouver which comes under another province called British Columbia.

Gallery

We saw the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park and Aquarium. We stayed in Fairmont hotel Vancouver waterfront which is famous as British Queen used to stayed there during British era. One day when I was going somewhere in a bus, I heard that an pandemic has spread in China, whose effect is being seen in many other countries as well. Just from here the time has taken such a turn that everyone is imprisoned in the house. Although there was not a harsh restriction in Canada at least for time being, but all the public places become very quiet and people goes out if it is really needed. Everything was messed up due to COVID-19. All schools, colleges, saloon, office were closed soon. For once it seemed as if we had been sentenced to be imprisoned at home. 

Father in law

 Most of the people were afraid to go to the hospital once they get sick. At India in my Hubby hometown, my father-in-law's health was getting a little deteriorated for number of days, He was staying in a small place of Jharkhand with family. He was allergic to dust and used to cough very frequently and suffering from this for a year. Doctor has informed him that he is suffering from asthma and should be on complete bed rest Although he was taking the medicine given by the doctor, the medicine was not showing its effect, and due to complete lock down in India, it was very difficult to frequently visit doctor or hospital  and unfortunately he left us on second week of May,2020. We also could not go to meet him just because of international travel restriction.

We still could not emerge from this grief that my eldest sister was diagnosed with cancer. She was not only my elder sister but a true friend of mine, when it came to know that she was diagnosed with cancer, it seemed as if darkness had fallen all around, she was living in Delhi with her family, Corona was spreading rapidly everywhere . due to the lockdown people were facing difficulty to move from here to there, the number of corona patients in hospitals were increasing day by day, which was directly affecting other patients, which had some effect on Didi's treatment. But Didi did not lose courage, July 20, 2020 She was given the first chemotherapy, the treatment continued, which also showed initially a positive result , but suddenly ,due to pandemic situation deteriorated, it became very difficult to find doctors in hospitals, and hence we put her in another hospital. Although she was in best hand, however, I guess there are some logistical issue and doctors visit to the hospital was not as it could be seen in normal days and hence Didi health started deteriorated slowly. 

My elder sister

Although, we had continuous discussion with doctor and frequently all the required tests and diagnosis were being done, Chemotherapy was not showing any positive sign. As a family, we decided to go for second opinion and had taken recommendation and suggestion from Tata memorial as it was not feasible to travel due to the circumstances, but all has gone in vain. The disease was weakening her physically day by day; however, she was ready to fight mentally and smile can always be seen on her face. But God has other plans for her and at last with the same smile she closed her eye forever. We lost our two dear ones during this pandemic.

But there is a saying that time does not wait for anyone. Life must go on…. As I said earlier, I got a work permit. Unfortunately, I also could not do much in Canada after receiving the work permit because of pandemic. We had to return to our home country, India as our visa were going to expires soon. That is all for now. This was my own experience of around of four years staying in one of the coldest and snowy place of Canada, you might be having a completely different experience. 

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"The Canadian Experience: Unlocking Life's Fulfillment" Chapter- 4