Serving up Pepper Soup for the Graduate Student Soul: Chris Anojulu

Social gatherings at the Sidney Webb graduate student accommodation are few and far between and when they do occur, the limited degree to which students do know each other is evident in the gasps of surprise as classmates realize they have been next-door neighbors all term. Graduate school is, after all, an inherently selfish endeavor. For many it’s a retreat from the vagaries of professional life demanding such concentration that there’s a tendency to embrace a monk-like existence, totally devoid of social interaction.

And yet, from behind the building’s reception desk, there is one adult who is drawing students out of this bubble and keeping them connected to the real world. Although his official title is security guard, Chris Anojulu acts as part time social director and guru for the 500 angsty twenty-somethings that call this place home.

Even if they don’t all know his name, every resident knows, “the friendly guy in reception.” It’s rare that someone passes his desk without a pound of intimacy, warm exchange, or at the very least, a nod of acknowledgment. Even those who started the year not looking him in the eye or slamming the door turned were softened by Chris’ good humor. “You cannot make instant judgments because those people actually turned out to be the nicest ones—I just caught them at a moment when they were going through their own stuff.” Throughout his daily night shifts, he offers wisdom and spurs generosity among this inward-looking crowd.

He gives people the benefit of the doubt almost to a fault. Even his remarks that people never seem to be satisfied with their lot are made in a spirit without reproach.  “When the weather is hot, they complain. When the weather is cold, they complain. This year I decided I’m not going to complain about the weather at all.” Thwarted by the 3 or 4 people who have already come by that day and said, “can you believe the heat?” he just laughs. “I know they do it because they just want to have a chat, but how many conversations can you have about the weather?”

Just as he finds something to laugh about in exchanges about the weather, he generously responds to the hundreds of questions he is bombarded with each day as if they were unique: “My roommate has a fever, what should I do?” “Help! My toilet is overflowing.” “Where can I order burgers from?” Ever since management replaced the coin operated laundry machines with an online system, the questions pertaining to washing clothes are never-ending: “The laundry machine says, ‘DE’. What is it trying to tell me? What setting should I use to wash my underwear?”

His attentiveness to these queries conceals the fact that he has dealt with the same issue only moments earlier. Instead of disparaging these questions, he attributes them to a particular time in life. “When you’re young you sleep a lot because you don’t have worries but when you’re an adult you have responsibilities and sleep isn’t as important. You grow to need less sleep.” For him, these expressions of the carelessness of youth are a reminder that adulthood demands proactivity and an end to complacence.

Coupled with his penchant for positivity, Chris is keenly aware that a healthy douse of realism does everyone some good. When students nearing graduation bemoan their reentry into the job search, he has little sympathy. “You want to know how to succeed? I’ll tell you how: be smart, struggle, hustle, and work hard.” He attributes his own success to this mantra. When he arrived in Germany from his native Nigeria and in London after that he took every odd job he could find from picking green beans to dry-cleaning.

“Give me 6 months anywhere and I will have it figured out. The mistake people make when they arrive in a new country is to try to get the top job. Just take any job and figure out the system. Once you’re in the system you’re set.”

It’s just this sort of intuition that makes him such an attractive figure. His knack for grasping a person’s character has garnered him quite a following including a group of students who would hang out at the reception desk for a few hours every week. They would chat openly about their girlfriends asking him for his advice on their relationships. With their departure came the end to their friendship.

Indeed with students coming and going every day and a new batch arriving each year, Chris remains the one constant in the midst of transition. Although he acknowledges a feeling of loss at the end of the school year, he is constantly facing forward. It might be easy to dismiss his abundant adages as hot air but he lives what he proffers. 

“If anything ails you, just find the pepper soup recipe that suits. Drink a bowl of it and you will be cleared out and ready for the next thing.”