Bob's my Burger!

Yesterday someone commented on the leftovers I was heating up for lunch at work and how much more he liked leftovers to sandwiches for lunch. I had to agree but also admit, "I just like food". I like to buy it (I'd much rather go grocery shopping than shopping for clothes); I like to prepare it and cook it (a good destressor); and I especially like to eat it.

One of our favourite places to eat burgers is Bob's Burgers in Sumas, Washington. We hop across the line, flummoxing American and Canadian border officials that we would bother to wait in line and haul out our passports just to eat a burger and drink a glass of beer. But this is a long standing tradition with our four Abbotsford friends, also ex-South Africans who now call Canada home.

Last weekend we headed across the line for our burger and beer bash at Bob's. We were toasting thirteen years of friendship in Canada and sojourns to Bob's together. It's a welcome opportunity to connect and not have someone misunderstand your accent or your choice of words.

A case in point was this just week having a Thai lunch with a girlfriend. Talking about travelling I referred to driving in Nîmes, France and how many circles there were. My companion quietly asked, "You're talking about roundabouts?" Of course, it's circles, robots and petrol in South Africa and roundabouts, traffic lights and gas in Canada. At Bob's we could say either and be perfectly understood.

Having emigrated from Holland to South Africa in 1958, M's parents sagely warned us, when we first mentioned our intention to emigrate, that we would "never belong anywhere ever again". We would never be fully Canadian, no matter how hard we tried, and South Africa would move on without us. How right they are.

When I sometimes find living in a foreign culture wearisome, I remind myself that, regardless of my accent and what my passport might say, I am a stranger and alien on this earth anyway, my citizenship is elsewhere.

Bob's not only offers us great burgers and green beer on St. Patrick's Day, it is also part of the fabric of our life in Canada. It is a resting place of fellowship, warm memories and South African accents as we journey through a foreign land knowing that our life is like the morning mist, here for a little while and then gone.