Purchased THE TICKET.

It seems every week we have had an appointment at the Immigration office in Malton (near Toronto). Many things to sign, many arrangements to be made for Douglas' forced removal. Canadian Immigration purchased a ticket for Douglas to leave on the 13th of April - Easter Monday. The cost to us was going to be $1500.00. After I phoned the airline and discovered the ticket for that flight to be $570.00, I phoned the Immigration officer to request that we be allowed to purchase our own ticket. The first response was an unequivocal "no". I then tried to request that we be charged a lesser amount than $1500.00, as I really did not understand how they could justify charging an additional $930.00 for making an online ticket reservation! I escalated my request up to the Supervisor and managed to reason with her after some discussion. She eventually relented and allowed us to purchase our own ticket. So now the date of departure is solidified for Douglas. We have been "sitting on the edge of our seats" since the summer thinking any day now he would go, and here we are nine months later actually purchasing the departure ticket. It is a bit of a relief to be getting on with this process of transition.

Douglas is consumed with worry; about leaving us behind, setting up a new life in El Salvador, many, many things are consuming him. He cannot sleep - he tosses and turns and is absolutely exhausted. It is not in my nature to be a worrier, so I am doing my best to stear him toward focusing on the positive. My philosophy is that as long as we have our health, we have everything we need. Of course, I am going to be very sad to be apart from him and will be concerned about him while he is apart from us. I am hoping that the "apart" will not be too long.

I just need to stay behind because we still have not sold our house! If it does not sell soon, I might have to rent it out until the market turns up a bit. Most people in my neighbourhood have taken their homes off the market and are waiting for that market to increase before attempting to sell again. There is much uncertainty with job losses and the recession, but if you have a relatively secure job, the interest rates and house prices are more than attractive!