UE students offer a taste of home at bazaar

Take chance to show off cooking, culture

University of Evansville student Ashley Whylly, who comes from Abaco, Bahamas, shares a house near the campus with two students from Bahrain and one each from Uganda, Chicago and California.

"We mix up who does the cooking," Whylly said.

Whylly's living quarters actually reveal a lot of about the culture of UE, which has students from about 50 countries in its total enrollment of about 2,900. On Friday evening, many of those students entertained their American peers and community guests at the 25th Annual International Bazaar in Eykamp Hall.

The event is a fundraiser for UNICEF.

Whylly, a senior studying organizational communications and psychology, said UE has long felt like home. But like all international students, she went through an adjustment period.

"It was definitely a culture shock coming here," she said. "The food wasn't what I wanted it to be. There's no ocean, and it felt strange being landlocked. And when the winter came and the sun went away, I got a little sad."

There was no sadness at the colorful, high-energy bazaar, which caps International Education Week activities at UE. Students on Friday celebrate their cultures with native attire, music and food.

Some international students got a taste of American culture before enrolling in college. Rino Matsui, from Tokyo, took part in an exchange program in high school and spent a year in Pennsylvania.

She and others said they came to UE because of scholarships and its reputation as a campus that's friendly to students from around the world.

Everything in Evansville, and in the United States in general, is still brand new for Suhrob Muratov, a freshman and UE's first-ever student from Tajikistan.

Muratov, who's studying accounting, often has had to explain to fellow students where Tajikistan is. But he's having a ball in college so far.

"It's great. I'm really happy here," he said.