Close Reading

Indian govt must grow some kahoonas and reciprocate the same conditions and hoops for tourists from usa, UK, Australia, nz, Europe that are subjected on indians. Its incredible how foreign tourists are allowed to do other things and get away scot free. Bjp is celebrating us soil in Bengaluru which speaks volumes of their commitment to indian pride and hypocrisy. The least india can do is ask for the visa fees back or atleast part of it. With a failed judiciary, corrupt real estate, benami rule, failed police , failed education, children are being born into state and central debt. Who is going to pay for the endless borrowing ? No sane aspiring youth would choose to live in this mess.

Life in Nigeria is only decent for those living affluently in Lekki, Victoria Island, Ikoyi, certain areas of Ikeja and Abuja. Outside of that, life for everyday Nigerians is crap. Water & electricity (NEPA) are highly unreliable & intermittent, so fuel-powered generators are a necessity for living everyday life per household or per apartment in apartment complexes. The banking & government systems are notoriously sluggish, taking weeks and months to process simple paperwork such as drivers licenses, passports, certificates, banking transaction reversals, you name it. Bribery is a daily occurrence EVERYWHERE. Police (if you can call them that, mostly untrained thugs) detain & extort motorists and/or people innocently going about their daily lives, just for the money. Many many many people disappear mysteriously without ever being seen again by family or friends. Lots of inter-racial discrimination and animosity between the three major tribes that make up Nigeria… Yoruba, Igbo & Hausa-Fulani. The federal & state governments are horribly corrupt, bordering on dictatorship. Elections are undemocratic, to say the least, with thugs threatening voters at voting booths. I could go on?\n\nThis is why many Nigerians with any amount of wealth live in diaspora, whether that be the UK, Canada, the USA, Europe, or wherever. And, yeah, be prepared for everything being structured & organized in these countries, especially in North America. The cost of living is definitely higher to pay for a higher quality of living. That’s the difference between a developed country vs a country, such as Nigeria, that’s developing or considered ‘third-world’. Unfortunately, here in Canada we cannot account for the last 8 years under our current administration, which has gone rogue & is out of control, causing high inflation, interest rates and housing and cost of living to soar. This is not normal conditions even to those of us natural-born here. So, we feel for immigrants who have arrived in good faith in the last few years. I’m sure their country of origin is looking better than what is being experienced here in Canada currently.

This Canadian lived in Orange County CA for 10 years. I took my the 12 year old with me. I had been offered my dream job and was paid enough to have a good standard of living. However, I lived in an immigrant community to save money as I found many of the high schools were horrid compared to Canada. I had not realized the school to school inequality to be so extreme and my kid changed to independent study at home. So with a Canadian elememtary education, they graduated high school a year only while skipping no courses..\n\nMy kid had medical issues and even with good HMO insurance, we could never get a decent diagnosis until it had gotten so bad that their digestive system was so wrecked. I finally sent them back to Canada for the surgery that we could not get in the USA. It seemed the insurance companies kept getting in the way. And in one case a doctor went all religious on us. After 6 years of almost continuous pain they finally got relief for a decade until the prior damage came back to haunt them However, after a year of university ib Canada my kid went to a private university in the eastern USA. They have decided to remain in the USA and now in their mid 30s, they make really good money anf have top line medical insurance which pays for the ongoing care they need because of the damage caused by delays when a teenager. \n\nI found life in the suburbs of Orange County nice but the OC is not a good place to meet people. When after 10 years there, in 2010 I returned to Vancouver to care for my elderly mother. I had been living alone for 6 years by then and was offered the first job in Vancouver anything close to me dream job there. and I returned to Canada at age 59. I had been approved for a green card in 2008 but there was a 6 year wait for it to come through. But I noticed the racism in the USA start breaking out all over the place when Obama got elected. And it has gotten worse and worse every year. Especially with 45 enabling it so much. \n\nMy circle of friends in Southern California are mainly good people and not at all like what we call MAGA-hats now. Except one who thinks 45 was the greatest. Politically, the USA is on the path that Germany was on in 1933 and I fear for the US Democracy if the Orange One gets in again. Even my kid and their spouse have bug out plans to head to Canada just in case. This is why my kid, while having a green card has never taken US citizenship. Besides, being a Canadian has not affected things the two times they got security clearances \n\nWhile most Americans are good people, it seems that about 25% have gone just plain loco and care nothing about democracy. And appear to prefer the USA to be a totalitarian theocracy \n\nI was there long enough, paying the maximum FICA taxes for 10 years to get a small pension from Social Security and I have Medicare Part A. I can afford to buy parts B and D but I see no reason. I have even better coverage in Canada for way less cost. The USA has a nice warm climate in many places and I just loved that. But otherwise y'all have too many people who want to turn the place into an intolerant police state and to return the country to 1950s levels of intolerance, So in my retirement, I will stay here in Canada. Even though I could go and move in with my kid in the USA and get onto US Medicare.