Night of the Drinking Dead

It’s Wednesday evening, and a few dozen students have gathered at Östgöta Nation . Some of them are international students, and some are Swedish. All are part of the International Buddy Programme. Among these students, a handful has gone the extra mile: They had become zombies, members of the undead.

The event is open to any and all members of the Buddy Programme. Typically, the members rarely meet. Since the foreign students are divided up into groups under the guidance of one particular buddy, they rarely meet outside those groups. This pub crawl is a chance for everyone to meet each other.

There are ten other pub crawls tonight, so the schedule is tight. Nobody was staying any longer than 30 minutes at each nation. Over a hundred people have said they are going to attend on Facebook. Pooja Vijaygopal, the Buddy Programme’s Project Manager, was worried it would be too much for the nations to handle.

– I hope everybody gets beer, she says.

At ÖG, it seems fine. Everyone is enjoying themselves. Some of the zombies even find time to answer some questions.

How would you survive a zombie apocalypse?

– By following the rules as laid out in the movie Zombieland. Be in shape, double-check that someone’s dead, and so on, says Linda, from Germany.

– I would go to an island where there were no zombies, says her friend Cansu Elmadağli, from Turkey.

Others are not so optimistic:

– I probably wouldn’t survive, says Sakke Teerikoski, from Finland. But after giving it some thought, he changed his mind:

– Actually, I would steal a truck, and drive through the zombie horde. nbsp;

There are, typically, two kinds of zombies: The slow and smart zombie, and the fast and dumb one. Given the option, most chose to be the first kind of zombie. Or a different kind:

– Smart and cruel, said Linda.

– I would be a slow, brain-eating, ancient Nordic warrior zombie, said Sakke Teerikoski.

The crawl’s allotted time at Östgöta is over, and on they go. On Sunday, the Buddy Programme will arrange another event: A flea market, where the fees for entrance and setting up a table will go directly to the Syrian Refugee Fund.