Two weeks of meeting different cultures, making new friends and working together have passed. While our blog is still growing with articles, it is time for us to say goodbye – for now.
On our last evening together we decided to celebrate our new friendships with a farewell party in the family center “West” near university. In a huge room that was prepared with a long table and provided a kitchen, we cooked some typical food from Nepal and from Germany. At 7 pm everyone had arrived and we started preparing our dinner. For the main dish the Nepali students cooked rice, lentil soup, cauliflower curry and chicken curry. As they prepared all the ingredients, the Germans could not help but wonder how many spices and how much onions and garlic were needed to get the right taste. While pouring more and more spices into the pot, the eyes of the Germans got wider and wider.
The dessert was a typical German food and not as complicated to prepare as the main dish. Actually, they only had to put frozen apple strudel, a rolled apple pie, into the oven and prepare the red fruit jelly.
While some students cooked, others sat outside with the professors and talked about the past two weeks. It was obvious everybody was sad that the time had flown so fast and that the Nepali had to leave on the next day. Before anybody could get too sad, the dinner was ready. Everybody took something from the main dish and we all sat on the long table to eat together. As the main dish was a typical Nepali recipe, students from Nepal decided to eat it in the Nepali way – without knife and fork, but with their own fingers. To the Germans this was an absolutely uncommon way to eat but some got curious and tried it by themselves. Hanna Feldmann´s resume afterwards: “It really does taste better if you eat it with your fingers.” Whether we ate with knife and fork our without, all German agreed that the Nepali food was just delicious and took second rounds.
Between the dishes, we used the time to take some last pictures and videos. We turned on the music and the Nepali girls showed the Germans how they dance in Nepal. We talked and laughed and enjoyed the last hours together. As the big finale, the apple strudel and the red fruits jelly were served with some vanilla ice cream. Everybody enjoyed the sweet dessert and had a smile on their faces afterwards. Especially Unnat Sapkota liked it so much that he not only took a second but a third round. “It is way too good,” he said after he had finished.
As everybody had his stomach filled with Nepali and German food, it was almost time to go. On the next day, the Nepali students had to leave at 6 am for their flight home, so they needed to get some sleep in advance. At 10 pm the taxis and as that time came closer, the atmosphere got more and more quiet and sad. We hugged, promised to stay in contact and remembered some of the best moments of the past days. As all Nepali sat in their taxis and the engines started to run, we started waving our hands and said one last goodbye. Then they drove back to their hotel.
For our last night, it could not have been better as we all enjoyed our time together. Some of the German students will go to Nepal in February and as far as I am concerned, everybody cannot wait to see each other again.