Afghanistan - A newly arrived British soldier actually thought the hugely popular and profitable Department of National Defence-owned Tim Hortons franchise at this noisy airbase was a religious cult.
“Once he got to know us, he realized we clearly were not a church group,” said Amy Barbarie of Sault Ste. Marie, who landed what she called ‘the best job in the world,’ serving thousands of Canadian and NATO troops deployed here to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Of all the troops who crowd the Tim’s counter, or queue at the ‘walk thru’ window outside, Barbarie’s personal favourites have been the Royal Gurkhas, the diminutive, but notoriously lethal Nepalese mercenaries who have fought for the British Army for nearly two centuries.
The Gurkhas are real fighting machines so I don’t know if they want people to know they like fru-fru drinks that aren’t so manly, but they really love their French vanilla cappuccinos and their honey-dipped doughnuts,” joked the 35-year-old Barbarie, who gave up a job in Canada with a logistics company to serve a six-month stint.
One of the revelations for Barbarie and the Canadian staff at Tim’s most remote outpost has been that national tastes differ greatly.
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