Yesterday, as I was returning to my university office after my last class, in the evening, I saw two men standing in the hallway who didn't look like students. They seemed too old, thirtyish or older; they had a casual, dislocated air. A secretary was just poking her head out her door to ask what they wanted and they answered, "We're looking for something." She withdrew her head. I walked past one of the men, who was standing in the middle of the hall chatting on a cell phone--also not typical for students, who, if they must make phone calls while waiting to see professors, sit down or withdraw to a corner. The other man had gone ahead of me, rounded the bend to the right of my office, where another small office was recently burglarized.
What was he doing there? Should I ignore him? If he was there to vandalize, I knew I was within screaming distance of the secretary.
I rounded the same bend, ten paces behind him, asking, "Are you looking for someone?"
Silence.
I discovered the man on his knees, eyes closed, lips pressing the floor. He appears to have been praying. I left immediately, walked back to the secretary's office, knocked, explained. I wondered if the man was just a wandering, devout person looking for a quiet place to pray? Was this scene for real?
"Oh, yes," said the secretary. "People often go back there to pray."
My husband said another small hallway near the men's room was also used for that purpose.
Nevertheless: it is, for a woman, unnerving to find a man crouching in the hallway around the corner from one's office when the skies are dark and all other colleagues have gone home.
Also, I don't think these guys had anything to do with the university. They were looking for an indoor place to pray.
Praying people should have a place to pray that is just for prayer. A university hallway is there to get students and teachers from one end of the building to the other. Someone who is not there to take classes can easily be mistaken for a predator.
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