International Cuisine Day by Tytti

Written by: Tytti Shemeikka

Nicely tanned, blond haired girl is standing behind a desk and serving food for a huge crowd. A nice smell of oil, rice and meet is everywhere, while the girl is smiling to all of her customers. Her smile never ends although everyone wants to talk to her about soccer and world cup. Every time someone yells "Go Spain!" the girl laughs and points at her t-shirt which is the official Spanish world cup shirt.

"The Spanish embassy wanted to promote Spanish food, that's why I came to the cultural festival", the girl says. By an accident her name fits to the 15th Polytechnic Cultural Festival: she introduces herself as Africa. "Everyone should try the Spanish cuisine. It's healthy with lot of vegetables, rice and fish. You'll live long if you eat this kind of food", Africa says and takes the money from a customer who is ordering some paella.

The Polytechnic Cultural Festival is held for the 15th time. The Engineering Basement is full of people who want to try some traditionally made food from all over the world - it's the international cuisine day.

The Chinese are in a hurry - everyone wants to taste their sweet and sour chicken and spring rolls. The Chinese don't serve their culture only by food; they are also giving people some medicine to manage your headache. The Indonesians stand next to the Chinese and they also don't have the problem of boredom. Despite of the lack of their traditional food, people are rushing to them with their cameras. Everybody wants to take a picture with the nearly naked Indonesian men and women.

The Oshiwambo's traditional drink Oshikudu doesn't stay for long on their table because people want to taste that weird looking beer. Their worms are also popular, although some girls are screaming while touching and eating these funny looking things.

The dj is playing music from all over the world while people wearing their traditional dresses are enjoying the food. Some young students can't decide which cuisine to taste so they take a little bit of everything with them to back home.

Near the exit, next to the Damara table, people are making funny faces. "Oh my, that girl is eating donkey meet!" someone yells and everyone stares at a woman with a nice piece of meat in her hands. The woman doesn't care about shouting and laughing - she eats her piece of donkey with a smile on her face. She also takes a dog bag of the donkey meat and fits it in her tiny purse while walking away from the International Cuisine Day.