Remembrance day far away

It was the beginning of November. Two months prior, I had moved to Quito, Ecuador, with my husband, who had accepted a three-year placement with the Canadian Embassy. I immediately enrolled in a basic Spanish course. One day, after a few weeks of classes, the teacher asked us to get into groups with people from our home countries. Our task? To write -- in Spanish -- about one of our country's most important historic dates.

A woman from Manitoba (the one other Canadian in the class) and I sat down together. We hemmed and hawed and looked at each other with blank faces, and desperately wished we had paid more attention in high school history. "OK," I finally said. "Why don't we do Canada Day? Confederation was July 1, 1867… or was it '57? Do you know the year?"

"Um, no," she said. Pause. "Well, we could do National Aboriginal Day."

"Perfect! When is it? What's it all about?"

"Oh, dear, I'm not too sure," she said. "And I'm aboriginal."

The Belgians were furiously writing about their important date -- with complete time lines. So was the group from France. We were struggling -- this was not going well.