Party Like a Permanent Resident

     “Ladies and Gentleman – this year’s Power 50 Marketer of the Year is… Mohamed Kamara! Mohamed, please come and claim your award.” 

     Mohamed could hear applause fill the air and the sound of a rap song in the background. He heard his dad’s voice booming from behind him.

     “You did it, my son, you did it! I am so proud of you”

       As Mohamed walked up to the podium, he noticed that the seats were empty. Looking back, Mohamed notice his father’s seat was unoccupied. In fact, there was no audience at all. As Mohamed started walking up the red-carpet lined stairs he felt the ground start to crumble. Looking up, he managed to make eye contact with the good-looking Caucasian male who was the award presenter. As Mohamed’s vision came into focus, he noticed it was his manager holding his final paycheck. “You are fired buddy, do you actually think we would actually award you?” Mohamed felt himself falling through the floors into a dark abyss.

 

“Mo… where are you?” a faint voice came from outside the room.

Mohamed woke up in a cold sweat. He looked at his alarm clock – 8am. He should have been at work by now. Mo sat up on his bed in one swift, urgent motion. Waking up at random times at night in this fashion was a bad habit of his, one his future chiropractor would certainly speak to, and probably his future psychiatrist as well if she did not diagnose it first. After staring dumbfounded at his ceiling for a minute, Mohamed suddenly remembered that it was Christmas Day and the office was closed. He lay back down gingerly on his pillow.

“Mo… open the damn door”

Two knocks on the door of Mo’s basement suite confirmed that he had a guest this morning.

Mohamed quickly pulled on his pajama shirt and stumbled to the front door. He peered carefully outside. The East Vancouver neighbourhood he lived in was notorious for break-ins, and even (as of recent) a string of violent home invasions. Mohamed saw a man with a puffy jacket wearing a green toque. As Mo stepped closer, he noticed it was his best friend, Shafiq. Mohamed felt his nervous tension dissipate.

Mohamed hurriedly unlocked his door.

“Ya scared me brother. Why didn’t you call me yesterday to tell me you were coming? Eh Shafiq, where is your wife? Shouldn’t you be spending the day with your wife and kid.”

Shafiq mumbled something inaudible before he spoke, “Bro I’m sorry, it is an emergency.”

Mohamed was worried. This was very out of the ordinary for Shafiq, the usually happy-go-lucky/outlandish comedian. While they didn’t see each other often, with Mo trapped at work and Shafiq trapped with newborn parenting duties, they made sure to attend mosque together once a week, followed by afternoon tea or coffee. Shafiq’s stories of perennial underemployment and diaper education often had Mohamed in stitches. Shafiq was an Engineer, turned Gas Station Attendant, and now probably classified himself as a budding entrepreneur. Shafiq always had amazing ideas for solving Western problems, unfortunately problems that Mohamed all-to-often pointed out, were not actually problems for most Westerners. For example, Shafiq came up with a remarkable idea of a swimsuit that could turn into a cocktail dress at the pull of a strap, in the odd event the female’s father or mother showed up at the beach and saw her underdressed. Mohamed kindly reminded Shafiq that cocktail parties usually did not occur at the beach and that in any event, two piece swimsuits were specifically selected for being two pieces rather than one.

Shafiq eventually resigned two weeks later to the fact that his idea was a flop. In fact, he lamented in the fact that his “market research” into two-piece swimsuits led to a cold night spent on the couch. His wife had come home from work one day and found Shafiq holding the newborn and looking at a few too many goriye girls.

“Mo, it’s not good. I think she’s doing something behind my back,” Shafiq’s eyes locked with Mohamed for a brief second. Mohamed could tell that Shafiq had not slept all night. He looked liked he had been hit by a bus.

“Brother, what happened?” Mohamed responded, quickly putting on a kettle of hot water for tea.

“I was out with the baby girl yesterday just around 5pm. I stopped at the Jimmys next to her work place. I grabbed two hot chocolates thinking I could give her a surprise when she left. Minutes later, I get this text message – saying she has a work meeting and can’t make it for dinner. This isn’t the first time, so I am not that upset, right. I get the stroller and I get ready to try and catch the next bus back home. I see out of the corner of my eye across the street. I know it was my wife. Just as I am about to call her name, I see this Lexus pull up and she gets into the front seat. I try and I.D the driver and I see her colleague next to her. Guy is the Team Lead of their project. I don’t remember his name. I know he’s rolling in dough. Dad’s a big-time lawyer or something. I remember him from the Christmas party. Whole night he was starring at my wife. My wife would smile back. I just know they are up to something.”

“Calm down brother. You are married with a kid. She would never be that reckless.” Mohamed grasped Shafiq firmly on the shoulders. “If you need me to go speak with her, I can do it for you. She’s in the PR business. We work with them all the time in marketing. It’s business around the clock. I’m sure it was just an innocent business meeting.”

“It is because I am a useless good for nothing foreign-trained engineer. Brother, I don’t know how you did it back in the day. I can’t even get another job anymore. I am an overqualified, stay-at-home father. That should just go on my resume. You know one interviewer last week even said that if he were me he would just let the wife make the money and stay home.”

Shafiq had only been in Canada for a year and a half. Initially, the plan was for his wife to move to Pakistan with him and for him to eventually find a company that would transfer him to Canada. However, Shafiq’s wife Muneeza (or Melissa, as she called herself at work) was offered a new job in Vancouver and Shafiq came to Canada right away. Importantly, Muneeza became pregnant shortly after sponsoring Shafiq. Now, he was what Canadian immigration called a “conditional permanent resident” and had to cohabit for his wife for two years before the conditions were removed.

Mohamed himself was all too familiar with Canada’s immigration system. He had arrived in Canada as a political refugee from war-torn Sierra Leone. His citizenship application had been held up for a year and a half because he had purportedly provided “inconsistent dates” – a two-week memory gap in his ten years as a Canadian permanent resident.

“Where is the wife and kid now?” Mohamed asked Shafiq inquisitively.

“They went to visit Melissa’s grandparents for lunch. I have to get back after lunch so she doesn’t think I left. Apparently the grandparents don’t want me to show up at their house this year. They think I’m some money-sucking bad omen.” Shafiq sighed heavily.

“Anyways brother, Merry Christmas.” Shafiq took out a small neatly-wrapped gift box from inside his jacket pocket. “I know it is not much, but I value our friendship.”

Mohamed guilty accepted the gift. He had been so busy with work that he had forgotten to prepare anything for Shafiq. “I left my gift for you at the office. I’ll hit you up with it next week.” Mohamed responded, hoping the cheerfulness in his voice would hide the whiteness of the lie.

“Go ahead, open it” urged Shafiq.

Mohamed opened the package to find a beautiful, brand new Quran written in both the Arabic and English language. “It’s beautiful. Thank you my brother. Let’s make lunch, how does some of my homemade fish stew and yam sound to you.”

“You know that I love everything you make guy,” Shafiq answered happily. “Tomorrow’s problems we can deal with tomorrow. Now where is the remote control, I want to watch the football game, the Hawks are playing”

“American football,” Mohamed kindly corrected Shafiq, throwing over the remote.