Just newly arrived in Leuven you may have noticed already that during the weekends your new playground for the coming year is practically deserted. On Friday, after college all Belgian students collectively pack their suitcases and gather at the station to take the train back to their hometowns. On Sunday evening the opposite scene takes place: en masse they all come back, dragging rattling suitcases stuffed with the latest fruits of mommies culinary discoveries crammed in überfunctional but unsightly Tupperware boxes.

You might be relieved that after a boring weekend, you finally have some company around. But when hopefully walking into the kitchen at rush-hour (you better save yourself a shelf or two in the common fridge) there’s just some small talk going on in Dutch around the fridge – together with the microwave a central point in the life of a Belgian student, since it is this holy combination that  brings back the taste of home every night – after which they all lock themselves up in their rooms to prepare some classes or watch a movie, as the weekly given pocket money ‘to buy food’ is of course rather spent on DVDs, beers, cocktails, crazy Thursday nights and the inevitable weekendretour ‘home’.
For years and years I witnessed this highly peculiar phenomenon, among international students known under the equally mysterious name `Belgian Weekend Migration’ –I do not know any country where the national railway benefits as much from students as here– without really understanding what was going on. What is it that drives all those Belgians back home every weekend? Is it really true that they cannot live without their mommies? Do they really miss Fluffy, Dolly or Mimi so much? It can’t be just that. Do they all have some sweetheart back home or are the parents threatening to disinherit them if they don’t show up every weekend?
Mysteries to which I found no clue, as my Belgian friends turn out to be rather closed on the matter –apart from their usual aloofness. However, somehow overtime I managed to build up relationships with some Belgians that go further than the obligatory complaints on professors, exams, the lack of (comprehensible) notes and the we’re friends for one night-attitude on parties. Still, these Belgian friends never dared or cared asking me to join in for a weekend. Suddenly however, as Belgian boyfriend B. appeared on the scene, my chances of experiencing the Belgian Weekend Migration-phenomenon increased heavily.
After hooking up for quite some time I now find myself regularly taking part in the weekly exodus on Friday to drive off in overcrowded trains to be received by a lovely family a few hours later. Because, -I get it now- that is what it is all about. Not sweethearts, nor food, pets or crying mommies are calling our Belgian fellows back home. Rather, it is the sweet feeling of being home and not having to think about school-related worries, a change back to the own comfortable environment only for a while, long enough to relax, but short enough to long for the next weekend again. (This, btw, is in short how a Belgian never gets loose from his birth ground.)
Though, as the truth has its rights and we should not idealize our Belgian friends too much, of course next to all the outbursts of incrowd-joy and peacefulness, laundry also plays a major part. But let’s be fair, actually we also like it more to let our mothers do the washing instead of going to this fishy (and fucking expensive) washing saloon every weekend, losing half a day.
Finally, my conclusion is that it might take at least half a year or so to get a chance of ever participating in the BWM-phenomenon (next to Belgian friends you’d better start looking for a Belgian lover right away –also for other purposes) but once you have experienced it, you understand our temporary compatriots a little better again- and mutual understanding, isn’t that what it is all about in the end?