Studiestrijd - Sax.nu

International
Foto: Toma Tudor
The ultimate Dutch
experience
Ride a bike, eat a stroopwafel or join a student organisation. Hundreds of international
students, among them 300 Saxion students, gathered at the event “International Students
Meet Enschede” on Saturday, September 26th. The objective of the festivities:
experience Holland, experience Enschede and meet other students.
Upon arrival, you can hear the sounds of a Dutch
street organ and the tapping of wooden shoes.
Everywhere you look there are people from all
over the world walking around and participating
in a variety of Dutch traditional activities.
There are traditional clogdancers showing their
skills on the dance floor. Many students stop to
watch and take pictures. Next to the dancers a
man is working on making clogs, also known as
wooden shoes. Guests can observe the different
steps it takes to produce this footwear. Some
people take off their shoes and try the clogs on
for a ‘test-drive’.
“These are good”, says Patience Muchada
from Zimbabwe (ITC student in Environmental
Management) who just walked a circle in one of
the wooden shoe creations. “The shoes are surprisingly
comfortable, they look weird though.”
After the shoes Muchada takes a bite out of a
fresh stroopwafel (a cookie with syrup which
you can buy at any Dutch supermarket). “I’ve
had this before, but this fresh one has liquid
syrup. I like it very much.”
Inside the building the students can participate
in many other activities as well. In the main
hall different (student) organizations such as
the police, SISA (Saxion International Students
Association) and ITC present themselves to the
guests. On the first floor international students
can take a workshop in Dutch traffic lessons
or learning the Dutch language. Some try to
pronounce the words and learn helpful
sentences such as ‘Ga je gang’, which means
‘Go ahead’.
The centre of Saxion plaza is reserved for
cycling lessons where cones mark a cycle path.
Many international students have never been
on a bike before and are trying it out. “Most
important thing: do not lose your balance and
just paddle”, advises of one of the hosts. Some
people are naturals; others need assistance
from one or two people so they won’t fall.
Next to getting to know Dutch culture, getting
to know the city was also part of the program
and students went on a city walk. “It’s very nice
to get to know the Dutch culture”, says Alicia
Tran from Vietnam (Saxion student International
Business and Management Studies), who visited
the event with her sister (also IBMS student)
Han. “There’s so much more to it than clogs,
although they are very cute.” After an afternoon
full of activities the students attended an international
party to get to know one another.
Wendy van Til
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