Dutch people just love eating cake. On a particular occasion on which I was filled with curiosity, I asked my colleague the reason why she invited us for a bite of cake on that day. Surprisingly, she told me ‘my husband is just visiting this place for the first time’. At that instant, I realized that you can eat cake on almost every occasion. Before coming to the Netherlands, I only knew that cake is primarily meant for special events such as birthday celebrations or wedding ceremonies. In Nigeria you don’t see cakes in offices or workplaces every day or even every week. However, the Dutch are peculiar for their readiness to share cake even for a hardly noticeable event. To be honest, it is always appealing to see cakes of all different shapes cut into many pieces for everyone to at least have a bite of it. And equally interesting are all the different kinds of jokes that are cracked as people are eating the nicely cut pieces of cake. Having eaten quite a few pieces of cake by now, I am thinking of reciprocating the kind gesture of my Dutch colleagues. It is my own turn to bring the next cake. The only question is: what will be my reason? Olawale Olaniyan, Nigerian MSc student of Animal Breeding and Genetics
Thinking of the next cake
In the Netherlands, it seems to me that every occasion requires a cake to be shared with friends, family members or even colleagues at work places.
