How did the members of foreign student teams see the International Evening?

 Mohammed Qawariq from Palestine, Faculty of Humanities

I really like this town, I feel good here. I live here for 2,5 years and I am planning to stay for 5 years here. My friends also learn here as doctors and architectures. They’ll stay for 4-5 years, too. I live in the Szánthó Student Hostel together with them. This is the first time I take part in the International Evening and I really like it, I think I wll stay until morning. In my country there are very nice and kind-hearted people. We cooked Maqloba, falafel, homesz, shoarma and the dessert  was baklava. In the cooking 5 people from my country have taken part.

Mustafa Rasoul from Afghanistan (living in Sweden), Medical School

This is my 5. year here in Pécs. I can speak Hungarian a little bit, but that is more clinical Hungarian. However, I try to learn this language as much as possible. 

This is my last semester and hopefully I’m gonna go to my practice back in Sweden. I guess Pécs is amazing: it is a small city with a lot of diversity. You can find students from all over the world, I think this is the most amazing thing in Pécs: there are lots of different cultures and you can get acquainted with different kinds of people... Afghanistan is a very colourful country with different ethnic groups. These ethnicities live together in such a nice way, we are all calling us Afghans, even though we are different ethnicities and we have different languages. By the way, we have two beautiful languages in Afghanistan: dari and pashto. Now here, in the International Evening we are quite a lot in our group: around 15 people. We took part in the International Evening every year, and each year we have made the traditional Afghan food: qabuli palaow, sabzi, firni, dough, bolani and chicken qorma. Among these the qabuli palaow is the very traditional one. It consists of Afghan rice which is according to many people the best rice in the world, raisins, carrots, a little bit salt. You melt the ingredients together and its taste is absolutaly delicious: that’s the reason why we have made it for 3 years, because all the students asked us to make the same food each year...

Mahmut Aksu from Turkey, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

I am an Erasmus student so I spend here only one semester: I’ll stay until June. Pécs is pretty good, it is a small and quiet city, I actually like it. The main characteristic of Turkey may be the bridge in Istanbul, which links Eruope with Asia. In cooking 3 boys and 3 girls took part. My team cooked Saç tava, Köfte, Baklava, Çıg köfte and Borek. I personally cooked the Saç tava, which is made in the following way: you fry the bief with oil, then you put onion and wait until it becomes glazy. Then you put a little bit garlic, tomato, black pepper, cumin and salt. Then everything has to be boiled and fried. It takes 1,5 hours.

Francesca Cordes from Germany, Medical School

I will spend my whole studies here, in Pécs. I’ll try to change back to Germany, but staying here is also OK for me because I like living here. I have been here for 1 semester. Pécs is a really great city: it is like a family, when you go to the city, you meet all the people you study with. They are not only people from Germany but you get to know also the other nationalities. You also meet Hungarian people so you learn the language, because you have to learn it, even if it’s hard.

The main characteristic of Germany are „Lederhosen” and „Dirndl”. Wir bieten Weißwurst, Bretzel and Jägermeister at our table. Bretzel is a kind of bred, and also made cake, but every types of it, not only German cakes. 20 or 30 people took part in cooking.

I live in a flat near to the University with 2 other girls. This is my first International Evening and I like it, it’s so great! You get to know so many cultures...You see them at the University but you don’t know everything and you get to know the meals and the drinks, everybody is happy... I think this is great!

 Photos: Mirkó Márk, UnivPécs