Winter of 2020
It was a freezing afternoon of March of 2020 (March 10 of 2020 more precisely). By that time, I was taking the course “Differential Geometry” given by Professor José Francisco Caicedo, known as “Profe Pacho” by the mathematical community in Colombia. I had two weekly classes on Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm and that particular day the weather was really awful. I had been in the University from very early hours and since then, the day had been cloudy and very cold; the sky was particularly dark and strong winds were slamming windows and doors of the department of mathematics of the National University of Colombia.
Before the beginning of the class, I went to the lunch counter of the department to get a coffee to warm me up. There, I ran into Andrés, who was taking that course with me and who had arrived earlier to the university nudged by the persistent threat of an enormous downpour forecasted by the closed sky. In the cafeteria, we also met with Profe Pacho, who used to arrive some minutes before the class, ask for a hot drink, and sit in the cafeteria to tweak the last details of his upcoming class. We shared some words,complained about the inclement weather and finally, we went upstairs to the cold classroom.
Not even an hour of the class had passed when it began to rain. At the beginning, it was a soft rain but gradually, it became more and more intense. The wind was blowing strongly and in cuestion of minutes, we were facing a rain shower. It rained for about 10 minutes and suddenly, a series of increasingly stronger knocks barged in our class: it was hailing. I remember that at some point the sound of the hail hitting the ceiling of the building was that strong that we couldn’t continue to hear the voice of Profe Pacho. The rain was extremely heavy and since the acoustic of the classroom was everything but good and the voice of the professor was not so loud, we had no option but to halt the class until the rain stopped or at least lessened a bit. We waited for about 20 minutes but it continued teeming. The rain was relentless and Profe Pacho decided to finish the class for that day.
As it kept raining heavily, Andrés and I decided to stay in the classroom talking for a while until finally, about 30 minutes later, the rain stopped. It was almost 6:00 pm and we prepared ourselves to leave the University, but when we left the building, the exterior landscape was like taken from a classical winter movie from a northern country. It seemed that an authentic blizzard would have hit the university, the huge amount of hail that had been falling for the last hour had been piled up over the grass, the trees, the ground and in conjunction with the freezing environment, it had made that cold March afternoon, the winter of 2020.
We waited in front of the mathematics department where everybody was in shock. This abundant amount of hail is an extremely rare occurrence in a city like Bogotá and everyone was astonished by the immense layers of it that were covering the ground. Little by little, like a shy child approaching another child, the people outside the building began to walk through the “snow” and to tour the university meadows that were largely buried by the hail.
It was just a matter of time to “break the ice” (literally). Some minutes after the rain had stopped, a lot of students were walking around, touching the hail, playing and taking photos of everything. There were people who even threw themselves to the ground to play with the hail, make figures and unsuccessfully try to construct little structures with the unexpected material. We were not the exception.
Although a slight rain came back again, everybody was enjoying the hail and they were no longer frightened about getting wet. They continued playing around all the campus and in each place that you looked at, there was somebody delighted with this cold spectacle. The best part of the day was the colossal snow war that unfettered in the main square of the university :“Plaza Che”. Lots of people gathered to battle fiercely using the hail as ammunition and their umbrellas as shields, and despite the ferocious combat that was taking place, laughs were the real owner of the battle ground.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any audiovisual record of this formidable crusade. I must say that I was too busy dodging the enemy artillery attacks and mobilizing together with my bold companions to prevent the enemy from taking the front line. However, there is a marvelous photography record (with a far better quality than the photos presented here) that you can watch in this link (I really encourage you to watch them, they are exceptional!) I found out that the person who took those incredible photos passed away some weeks ago and I would like to share them as a little tribute to his memory and his amazing work.
Exactly two weeks after this lovely day the national lockdown began and until this day I have not been able to go back to the university. However, I treasure this day as one of the happiest and most fun days in college before the pandemic sent us all to home.
