Oct. 21—BLUEFIELD — Chicory Square in Downtown Bluefield will be a sea of colors, food and music Saturday as the City of Bluefield and Bluefield State University are hosting the United Nations Day Celebration.
Students from at least a dozen or more countries will participate, dressing in their country’s attire, selling samples of food from their homelands and music will also be performed.
The event, also a fundraiser for BSU’s International Student Organization (ISO), will start at 11 a.m. and end at 2 p.m.
BSU Office of International Initiatives Coordinator Professor Sudhakar Jamkhandi said this joint effort between the ISO, BSU and the city to celebrate UN Day is the first in the state.
“For this event we wish not only to showcase the different countries represented by all of our international students and we hope to have at least 15 to 20 countries cuisines featured, we also invite anybody in the community to share their cuisine,” Jamkhandi said. “We hope there will not only be food but plenty of colorful clothing and wonderful music that will entertain everybody who is present.”
Students Selena Poljak and Jan Berger, both from Germany, have been busy getting ready for the event.
Poljak, from Herne, is baking German Apple Cakes.
“The thing about German Apple Cake is there are a lot of different variations of how to make them,” she said. “I am going to use one that is similar to what you get at the bakery, which has crumbles on top.”
Berger, from Hamburg, is making curry wurzt, or curry sausages.
“I think they created it after the war when British soldiers brought ketchup and curry and Germans mixed it together and put it over sausage,” he said. “It is now one of the most famous street foods in Germany. You can get it in every city … it’s not that expensive so many eat and love it.”
Both said they grew up learning how to cook from their families.
“I definitely grew up with that,” Poljak said, adding that both of her parents are from Bosnia but moved to Germany before she was born. That is why she learned how to cook food from both countries.”
She also speaks both languages, and a few more.
“My mom and grandma taught me,” Berger said. “They love to cook so I learned.”
Both said they like this area very much.
Poljak said the location of her hometown has a topography similar to West Virginia and is also famous for coal mining.
That gives her an affinity for West Virginia, she said, and even the weather is similar.
But it has been the kindness they have seen here that has impressed them the most.
“We have heard about Southern kindness, and we definitely have experienced it here,” Poljak said, adding that at first she had to get used to people waving at her when she was driving.
“I was wondering if people confused me with someone else,” she said, but she was told by her host that, no, people just wave at you. “That is something that never happens in Germany so it was a very nice experience.”
“That is really true,” Berger said of the kindness here, adding that he experienced it first-hand when he attended the recent Bridge Day in Fayetteville to see parachutists jump off the famous New River Gorge Bridge.
“My car broke down in the Walmart parking lot (where he left it to catch a shuttle to the bridge),” he said, and when he returned from Bridge Day his car would not start.
“I was sitting there for four hours and normally in Germany people may stop to see if it is the battery and if it is not then they are gone,” he said. “You are completely on your own.”
That is not what happened here.
“I had so many people show West Virginia kindness who came and tried to help me with my car,” he said, even bringing him food. “I was a young lost German in the parking lot … received help, and that was a great experience.”
Both students are here for a year with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program for young professionals.
Poljak said 75 students from Germany and 75 from the United States are accepted into the program each year, spending a year in their host countries to study and work. Students must be between 18 and 24 years old.
A similar program is available for high school students and vocational/technical graduates.
Anyone interested in the program and go online at cbyx.info to learn more and/or apply.
The program is funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by Cultural Vistas.
Both students, who arrived this summer, will work in the area from January to June, spend then travel for three weeks in the U.S. before flying back to Germany in July.
“We are looking for more West Virginia students to participate in this,” Poljak said. “It is a full scholarship .. It’s an amazing program.”
She said any student who may have thought they have no opportunity to study abroad can apply to the program.
Jamkhandi said there will be a small charge for the food samples on Saturday to raise funds for ISO, but nothing over $5.
He said Sam’s Club donated food to the students to help with the dishes they are preparing.
— Contact Charles Boothe at cboothe@bdtonline.com
Contact Charles Boothe at cboothe@bdtonline.com
