Intern’l students hold exhibit at U.C.B.
If you wanted something other than rice and beans today, U.C.B. was the place to be. The International Fest and Dance featured something sweet, something sour and a lot of something spicy.
It was like a visit to Epcot Center in Florida, only that the venue was much smaller: held at the University College of Belize. The university’s students, staff, faculty and visitors toured various cultural food booths set up by the foreign students of U.C.B.’s Exchange Student Language Programme. Whether you were looking for something tasty from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, China and Taiwan, it was all decoratively laid out for everyone to bite into and enjoy.
Rene A. Rodriguez, Panama
“First of all, we have here a potato salad with carrots and also it has chicken. Here, we have chicken with rice but it is very different from the chicken you have here in Belize.”
Q: “How is it different?”
Rene A. Rodriguez
“The taste and it is more spicy.”
Shelley Chang, China
“This is dumpling and it has some cabbages and pork.”
Jacqueline Woods
“That sounds interesting.”
Shelley Chang
“This is sauce eggs.”
Q: “How are the eggs prepared?”
Shelley Chang
“It’s made with tea, black tea and that’s why it looks brown.”
Q: “So you dip it in some black tea and then you boil it or is it boiled in black tea?”
Shelley Chang
“Yes, it is boil with black tea.”
Pearla Fagot, Nicaragua
“We have here enchiladas from Honduras, we have floutas from El Salvador and we have popupas from Nicaragua and El Salvador.”
Q: “Is popupas a popular dish?”
Pearla Fagot
“Yes.”
According to Javier Ayuso, a lecturer of the ESL program, besides the obvious fun that the students have, the event, which started in 1995, gives the students an excellent opportunity to practice their English.
Javier Ayuso, Lecturer, ESL, U.C.B.
“It started three years ago. It is sort of showcasing the students’ culture and by that I mean the ESL students that come from Mexico, Panama, Taiwan, Central America, wherever English is not spoken as a first language. And it is an activity that presents their food, dances and music in a very attractive way to the U.C.B. community.”
Presently there are twenty-nine foreign students enrolled in the ESL program at U.C.B.
U.C.B. Week continues tonight with a student forum at the Holy Redeemer Parish Hall which was scheduled to begin at 6 o’clock. The topic: the closure of the Broadcasting Corporation of Belize.
