Yesterday, I sat at the campus Café to warm up with a cup of hot chocolate as I went through my E-mails on my laptop at University of Leicester.
The morning had been stormy and pretty cold, an indication that the winter is really going to freeze our hands out here in the United Kingdom.
As I sipped the next round of my hot chocolate, a beautiful black woman approached my table beaming with smile—walking slow, probably struggling to cope with the heavy books she was carrying in her bag pack.
You could see she had been walking in the windy cold weather for some time since her eyes were watery—and her face was very dry.
Just a few yards away from me, she kindly asked if she could sit next to me just by the window. It is a Café and people can surely occupy empty seats around the same table so I quickly answered; sure why not!
After unloading her bag pack, she brought out a book which I know very well from my undergraduate law studies—Law of Tort by Cooke. Before she asked if I could keep an eye on her stuff so she can get a cup of tea, I told myself she must be an undergrad in her first year, studying Law.
On her return and both of us looking straight into the windows where the wind was making its noisy sketch on the park, we talked about how bad the days ahead will be. And how much it will be a pain to wake up in winter to come for morning lectures…
Within few minutes of the ‘weather talks’, the conversation got personal and I got to know this woman as Olivia who lives on campus…