In the photo: Júlia, Emma, Thibault, Jin, Yurdanur, Daria, Miia, Maïmouna, Iris, Alison, Dominique. Photo: Guy Ackermans There are student houses and there are weird and wonderful student houses. In this column we visit the latter. This time it’s Pomona 3.
House: Pomona 3
Residents: Aaditya (India), Alison (Malta), Angel (Spain), Daria (Poland), Dedji (Sri Lanka), Dominique (Germany), Emma (Canada), Iris (Netherlands), Jin (China), Júlia (Hungary), Maïmouna (Mali), Miia (Finland), Thibault (France), Sebastián (Austria), Varsha (India) and Yurdanur (Turkey)
UNIque because: there are PhD researchers everywhere you look
Júlia: ‘The house consists of two residential groups, upstairs and downstairs. There are also four independent flats. In total, there are 16 of us, of 15 different nationalities.’
Thibault: ‘Rumour has it that the landlord doesn’t want any residents who speak Dutch, so that we don’t complain, ha ha.’
Dominique: ‘About a third of the residents are students, the rest have jobs. Most of those are doing a PhD.
Iris: ‘A lot of the conversation at the table is about PhD research. They almost got me doing a PhD!’
Thibault: ‘Now that almost everyone works from home, it’s nice that we’re all living together. Working from home is very different when you are alone in a flat. Covid has helped us to grow closer as a house. We used to eat together now and then, on special occasions, but now we do so every week.’
Dominique: Whenever there’s anything to celebrate, we organize a dinner.’
Emma: ‘Like now, Chinese New Year!’
Jin: ‘That will be a traditional meal. Chicken soup, dumplings, fish and spring rolls. And we will decorate the house.’
Iris: ‘So that’s how it always goes. Honestly, 80 per cent of our conversations are about food. If you want to live here, you either have to love cooking or you have to love eating.’
Iris: ‘Before it was a shared house, there was a chicken farm here. The land around it was an apple orchard, part of Pomona nursery.’
Thibault: ‘There are still some very old apple trees in the garden.’
Iris: ‘The landlady used to live here herself, with her family. It was one big villa at the time, but later they divided it up and created student rooms and flats in it.’
Thibault: ‘When I first moved in here, it was a real maze to me. There are three different entrances and staircases all over the place.’Iris: ‘If you go away for a long time, you put your plants in the living room and the others look after them. Around Christmas, it’s a bizarre sight, because everyone is abroad. The living room is a jungle then and the few people left at home have a full-time job looking after the plants.’
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