The Curious Case of the Duotang and the Washroom

I spent eight years studying French, four delightful years with the stern but wonderful Mme Sunderland learning to have strange and stilted conversations we'd never use and never forget. "Aie! La moustique a me pique!" We shyly sang along with her as we learned beautiful Christmas songs. We'll never use those either, but I wouldn't trade those lessons for anything. College French was much more serious but equally delightful. While I drove my poor professor crazy by my constant gazing out of the tall open windows in old Jewell Hall, I was an enthusiastic conversationalist who often nudged my sleepy classmates into discussions about whatever French novel we were reading. I became a master of French vocabulary, filing away each new word after rolling its new sounds in my mouth like a marble. I may not have been the most gifted at proper syntax, but my vocabulary was superb! But once those eight years of French language and literature had ended, I never expected to be back in the classroom again learning those lists of new words and trotting them out in stilted practice conversations.

I find myself back in the classroom, now at the front of the class as the teacher, but still rolling around new words and finding ways to trot them out and show my skill. Who knew Canadians spoke a foreign language? Almost daily, I encounter a new word and never fail to be surprised by how foreign it feels. Here I am in a place that looks an smells like an old high school in the rural American Midwest, but I am constantly reminded that I'm in a completely different world. Bathrooms are "washrooms." I've made the mistake of asking for a "restroom" and been sent on a confusing goose chase to a "restauRANT."

Students earn "marks" not grades, and instead of taking a test, they "write a test" or "sit for exams." My poor students had to adjust to their teacher's strange references to "points" and "grades."

Folders with brads in them to hold papers in place are referred to as "duotangs." This particularly exotic marble of a word still delights me. I've given up on referring to them as "folders" to avoid the puzzled look from my freshmen (called grade 9's by everyone but me).

The spelling differences, while expected, still take some getting used to. Thankfully, my reliable Canadian spell checker just discreetly changes my spelling as I type, saving me from sticking out as an American sore thumb as I communicate with parents or write tests for my students.

Seniors, or "grade twelves" become "graduands" at the end of the year (God willing) and go on to either college or university, which are not interchangeable terms. On the day of graduation, they'll line up "side by each" to receive their diplomas.

On the whole, these differences are refreshing, placing me on the outside of "my own" language and reminding me that American English is actually not what is spoken by others around the world, that we Yankees are not the norm we like to think we are.

You Eat What?

Okay, don't get me wrong. I'm smitten with Canada in many ways, but come on, Cannucks, what's up with the grocery stores?

I was so relieved to find a familiar store just down the street from me. When everything seemed so unfamiliar and new, a small reminder of home was a breath of fresh air. (I know--I didn't move to rural China. It's not like I'm really suffering here, so I promise to keep my whining mostly in check, and I won't expect you to feel any kind of sympathy for me.)

Turns out, though, that I wasn't in Tucson anymore, and this was no American Safeway.

I go to get my cart upon this first visit to my friendly neighborhood Canadian grocery store only to find said cart locked to a long chain of others. Is there a secret password? Do I have to do a Canadian handshake or hum "O' Canada" to prove my worthiness? I wait long enough to watch a veteran shopper pop a coin in a little slot on the handle. Okay. We pay for our carts here. After digging through my coin purse, dropping cards and cash in the process, I try various coins until I find one that fits--a quarter! A loonie, they call it, or is it a toonie? I can't seem to keep them straight. Alright then.

I then begin making my way around the perimeter of the store, stopping for fruit and vegetables. In the midst of putting a head of lettuce in my cart, I notice the sign: "Green Leaf Lettuce--Product of the U.S." I figure this is early summer, perhaps Canadians have a later growing season; maybe this is just an exception. Item after item, though, I find the same, all imported from the U.S. and all expensive. It's puzzling. Here I am, surrounded by lush farmland in a province known for its farming. Why are these items being imported?

We would later learn the trick to locally grown produce--just shop the farmer's market. The Hutterites will gladly sell you their shiny fresh chard and glowing orbs of onion. . . for a price.

Rolling along down the dairy aisle, I scan for cream cheese and am shocked and horrified to find the strangest flavors--dill pickle, ketchup? Really? The chip aisle was equally foreign. It is here amongst these odd-flavored junk foods that I realize all the product labels are in French. This is not a terrible problem. I took eight years of French, and enough scraps of my education have remained to decipher basic phrases--"Frites Ébouriffés!" "Gras Réduit!"
--but aisle after aisle reveals the same story--French labels proudly displayed. Has Quebec secretly taken over the Commonwealth? Have they agreed to postpone their rebellion as long as the Canadian grocers accept "French First!" as their motto? It is all very suspicious.

Having partially recovered from my disappointment at not finding my favorite comfort foods, I head straight for the alcohol. Up and down the aisles I go, seeking comfort in a cheap bottle of Shiraz. Nothing. No beer, no wine, no hard stuff. I'm bereft. Fearing I've somehow moved to the Canadian version of Provo, Utah, I panic and tug the sleeve of a wide-eyed employee. "Oh, that's a bummer, hey? You've got to go to the liquor stores to buy those items. Sore-y!"

I'll spare you the tale of the wine shopping experience. A dollar for a cart? Twelve dollars a bottle for cheap wine? Where is Trader Joe's? Where is Two Buck Chuck? Okay. Okay. I promised not to whine.

Turns out I get my 25 cents back for the cart. My husband, the ever-observant neuroscientist, marvels at the "amazingly effective example of human engineering." One lousy quarter will motivate the laziest of shoppers to return their carts through rain and sleet and Chinook winds. He's right. I dutifully schlep my cart back to its home to retrieve my reward.

Of course we're managing just fine. We're certainly not starving. I just feel a little twinge of sadness without the comforts of home.

Ah, Your Lovely Voices

I'm fascinated by accents. I savor the nuances in the way people speak, the pronunciations, the colloquialisms, the cadences. My friends will tell you that I tease them relentlessly--Rachel and Jeanie Bean from Back East with their nasal tones and accentuated consonants, Larissa with her drawn out and dozy Southern vowels, but really I'm charmed.

Canadians are equally charming to me. I'm new enough here not to be able to pair their accents with their region, but there's a heavy Scottish flavor in many of them that I'm dying to trace.

All of them have a lovely way of lengthening and rounding out their words--"Oohhhh, yaaaah, fur surrre." And rather than the ubiquitous American "huh?" they'll say, "sorry!" (which comes out at "sore-y") instead. Wonderful.

Upon my first visit to Canada, I arrived hoping to hear the stereotypical "aboot" instead of "about" and lots of "eh's" sprinkled at the ends of their sentences. To my surprise and delight (at least here in Alberta), it's actually "a-boat" that they say, and I hear many more "hey's" than "eh's".

At first the "hey's" reminded me of my teenage American students (girls, always) whose every sentence ended with "ya know?" as a way of gaining acceptance from their listeners. I was wrong about the Canadians, though. It's a by-product of their utter likeability, a courteousness woven in the culture, I now think, a way of connecting with you in conversation: "Oh, the health care system does take a bit of getting used to, hey?"

Perhaps it's just that I live in a small town in Canada, and what I'm experiencing is simply the more neighborliness of rural life. After all, I grew up in rural Missouri, and it was much the same--conversations were a chance for you to show graciousness. I'd like to think, though, that Canadian culture in general is what's reflected in their speech, for every time one of them says to me, "Oh, no worries!" or "Oh, right! Fur sure!" I feel a little more welcome here.

I'll start here. It's August and I'm happy.

My god. I wake up every morning (okay, early afternoon, if I'm being honest) and continue to be stunned by the beautiful weather. Up on our third floor condo, we have a clear view of the Oldman River, blue and sparkling as it lazes northward. Tucked at the bottom of a coulee, I'm surrounded by sloping grassy hills and valleys like nothing I've ever seen. I've never traveled to the countryside of Ireland, but when I dream of it, this is what it looks like.

It's high summer, which I'm delighted to find means highs from the upper 70's to low 80's most days. Coming from Tucson, with months upon months of temperatures in excess of 100, this is unbelievably cool and lovely. Most of these summer afternoons have brought stunning skies. The clouds build and fluff themselves upward throughout the mid-day until late afternoon when the winds come, and the clouds turn impossible shades of slivers, blues and blacks, bringing a little shower to cool us off for the evening.

The cats are delighted. Coming from the desert, we were terrified to let them out. Coyotes howled from the arroyo just beyond our yard in Tucson. Scorpions lay under rocks, and this was no place for felines. Here, three flights up, they are able to sun themselves for hours on the balcony. Birds land and sing in the nearby trees, songs these cats have never heard before. Dogs and their owners walk below, and there is no end to the delight. Even when the storms come, the winds carry exotic scents and raindrops, all new and exciting for them.

I know this is all temporary. I can already sense autumn approaching. Just last weekend on a tour of the haunting Frank Slide Park in the foothills of the Rockies http://www.frankslide.com/info.html , I spotted yellow birch leaves dotting the creek bed. The cold is coming.