Coming to Canada: a Personal Odyssey

What does it take to leave a good job, your community, your country, and even your continent, and move 4,200 miles away? As manager at an accounting firm in the Gambia, Kevin Kingsley-Williams was provided a house, a maid, a car, club memberships, and other perks of corporate life. But after experiencing the 1994 military coup, he immigrated in January of 1997 to Toronto, where the thermometer registered minus 10 degrees Celsius.

Once in Canada, Kevin immediately hits a series of snarls as he attempts to build a new life. Getting a job requires an address, but getting an address requires proof of employment. He is found "lacking in Canadian experience" yet also deemed to be "overqualified." Having misjudged the effectiveness of his footwear, he is forced to wander a shopping mall in his socks-yet the ski mask and parka he wears in a desperate attempt to stay warm cause potential employers, landlords, and bankers to view him with alarm.

Join Kevin as he adjusts to a new world, where apartments that were for rent a few hours ago are "unavailable" when he arrives to look at them and phrases such as "digging out" take on new meaning after the first snowstorm. Kevin offers, with his humor and perseverance, a fresh perspective on the challenges of the immigrant experience.