Arrival

January 29, 2002. My family and I land as immigrants in a country where temperatures are described as plus or on this day minus 24 with a windchill of minus 30. Carrying suitcases from arrivals to the pickup zone becomes a daunting task, but the first stop and from this day, Tim Horton's is my beacon of sweet reassurance.

We instantly fall in love with the house in the country; duvets on the beds, candles in place and the fridge stocked with delicatessen to help us through the long nights of jet lag. In the weeks to follow our vocabulary expands with words like power-outages, snowstorms and -plows, scary black-ice, unbelievable beauty of jack-frost -- not to forget the luxury of scholars being picked-up by yellow busses. 

“The honeymoon phase is soon to pass and then reality kicks in” says a friend on his way back, but pardon me! We have no time to spare. I mean, after 45 years suddenly having to drive on the opposite side of the road, following directions from north to south, east to west when one can hardly see the sun; looking for Maizena that happens to be cornflour; tekkies are sneakers, vests thermal underwear, jerseys sweaters and robots traffic lights. Reality my friend? Reality is when you get swamped, speak your mother tongue to strangers and English at home. 

After the second month and the many faces of snow, subtle green appears on the branches of the huge Maple trees and within a week the harvesting of syrup in sugar bushes becomes a huge attraction for the survivors of winter-claustrophobia.  Saturday mornings have pancake breakfasts at the local churches with the promise of strawberry suppers later on. 

Bells chime and spring gives birth to red and yellow tulips, the appearance of daffodils, lilies, chipmunks, squirrels, birds and black flies. As if this isn’t rewarding enough, everyone gets an incentive: clocks are put on hold for an hour and the calendar sends an invite to everyone: Barbecue and tan for the entire nation celebrates the radiant summer. 

If this is honeymoon, I’ll stay married to Canada for the rest of my life.